The couple in front of me boarding the flight and I started to talk in the jetway. I asked, “Are you traveling for pleasure?” And the woman teared right up, “My father,” she choked out, “down in Florida. He has cancer and might be dying.”
“So sorry to hear that,” I responded. “Clearly this is hard news.” We moved down the jetway.
“I don’t know what to do with it,” she said. “But this guy,” she added, bumping into her partner dude who was 12” taller than me and three times as wide, “he said we needed to go. So we got the funds together and we are going. And also, we are expecting our first child and my dad doesn’t know this yet. And on top of that, it is his (again bumping the giant next to me) first trip on a plane.”
Clearly she did a lot of talking for he hadn’t spoken.
I looked up at the guy standing next to me, looking slightly chagrined at her revelation, and said: , “No way! Your first plane trip? And congratulations to you both. Babies! So exciting!”
“Yep,” Mr Giant responded to the fact of his first flight, looking a bit sheepish that she’d brought it up at all, “And I’m a little nervous.”
“Well, from the looks of it, you could pick up the plane if need be.” At this, he laughed. “But, sometimes it helps to recall that lots of people fly every single day and there really are minimal problems. You’ll do fine,” I said as he ducked to enter the plane. Yes, ducked. And then walked sideways down the aisle.
They got into row 18, window and middle seat, and the man who had stood so they could enter, exhaled this huge, frustrated sigh, as they were seating themselves, and literally rolled his eyes up to the ceiling of the plane looking so annoyed to see this giant sit in the middle seat meaning that his own seat just shrank a bit. I chuckled and prayed they might chat, really the giant was quite pleasant.
An hour later, as we got off, they were waiting and looking lost in the terminal gate area.
“Congratulations on surviving your first ever flight!” I told the giant. And then, “You guys doing ok? Are you a bit lost?”
She spoke right up, “We don’t know how to find where our next gate is.”
“That much I do know,” I said. I showed them to the departures display and helped them find their gate. They thanked me and then, before I departed, the woman said, “This is really strange, I know, and kinda stupid, but, we both think you look just like Ryan Reynolds! You have his same build and jaw and hair. You could be him playing a fatherly role.”
I laughed. That was a first. I checked out his picture later online and was flattered, but decided the comparison was quite a stretch!
She continued: “Could I take your picture so I can prove to others I met you?”
“Sure, but you know I am really not Ryan.”
She laughed and snapped a picture of me with her husband/boyfriend.
I wished them well, said goodbye, and we started to walk in opposite directions to our gates. The words of a woman named Trista, whom I had just met the previous week returned to me. She had said, “We are practicing saying these seven words, ‘Could I pray for you right now?’”
As I remembered that, I felt a clear prompt to turn around and offer to pray for them -- they were headed for her dad’s side with a child within and didn’t know Jesus, from what I could tell. It took a while, but I found them, and said, “I’m Brian Shimer by the way.” “Dustin” said the towering man with glasses. “Christina,” she said.
“Great to meet you. I returned, for as I walked away I felt like I needed to come back and ask if I could pray for you right now?”
Clearly uncomfortable with the idea but open to it, after all it was Ryan Reynolds asking, she said, “if you’d like.”
We moved a bit to the side by a big post out of the flow of traffic.
I prayed: Binding up the cancer cells in her dad’s body and offering them to Jesus. Placing them all, including that baby, into God’s care. By the end of my prayer they were both crying. Christina couldn’t speak.
“I wish there were more people like you in this world," Dustin said. "Everyone is so selfish all the time. No one stops for anyone." I knew what they meant.
I added: “Well some do stop, don’t they? And actually this is Jesus. He loves you and sent me to stop. You know that idea that people don’t stop, reminds me of a story..."
I told a brief preface to the Zacchaeus’ story from Luke 19 and then said "and this is what the Bible says, ‘when Jesus came to the spot, he looked up and said Zacchaeus you come down. I must stay at your house today...’.” And then we talked about this story of Jesus stopping, knowing Zacchaeus’ name, and inviting himself to Zacchaeus’ house. We noticed that this same Jesus is also inviting himself to their home as well. I asked some brief questions and after discussing this a few minutes, the conversation shifted, they were heading off, and we bid one another goodbye. But this time I could continue praying for them and her dad Mark in Florida for continued healing.
Meeting this couple for this random encounter, praying with them, sharing with them, uplifting Jesus to them, and then parting from them, reminded me of the fact that our lives are filled with brief and longer encounters all along the way. Daily we meet people briefly whom we may not see again, and then with others we have the opportunity for more long term relationships. As I am living each day of this year, I am so grateful for the time God has given us together. All this time.
I was struck with that especially when I stumbled upon this picture of me with Dylan and Jesse Theriot taken around 9-10 years ago just how much time has passed! These two young men are now teens! SImilarly, you all and I have had this wondrous and unique and delightful privilege of a long time to walk together, work side by side, see God build us up into a community actively engaging our community and growing into all God has for us. We have shared so many times of prayer, of story, of sharing, of tears and laughter. It has been and it continues to be a marking time of my life. I’ve become more myself here because of all of you!