Taxiing with Jesus!
If your family happens to live on the opposite side of the earth, with a 12-hour time zone difference, then your voice or video calls would literally be daytime vs nighttime or vice versa. You would call at 7 PM in the evening, and for them it would be 7AM in the morning. The even greater consequence is when you want to visit them, there is no direct flight, and you will journey on a long flight, in addition to taking one or two transit flights.
And so, it happened to us, since we were a little late to get our flight ticket to visit L’s Mom in Indonesia, our best possible flight option was with 2 stops, one in another state in the US, and another one in Japan. The total hours travelled was 24, for departure flights, and 35 hours for return flights. J’s Dad said to us, before we left, "Well, I wish you the same number of takeoff flights as your landing flights", in his usual joking way.
Long story short, the joy of meeting family and friends in Indonesia washed away the tiredness of the long flight. Suddenly, it was time to go back home. The 35-hour return flight included an 11-hour transit became a blessing of sightseeing and rest.
At 5.30 PM boarding time, we were comfortably seated, awaiting the soon to begin, or so we thought, 13-hour flight back to the US. The safety instructions were played on the screen, just as the plane was taxiing and preparing for takeoff. Fifteen minutes passed, and another 15 minutes later, we were still taxiing. We thought that the airport must be really busy! But finally, there was an announcement from the pilot, there was a mechanical problem with the airplane, and so it forced us to go back to the terminal.
Seeing the pilot-in-command, the captain, right before we were boarding, gave us the impression that he is experienced, and really knows what to do. But waiting inside the airplane for almost 2 hours on the ground, it did not help to alleviate our anxiety of flying in the same airplane for the next 13 hours. Some anxious thoughts started to emerge, and a soft whisper in our hearts, questioning whether Jesus still needs us on earth, mixed with the scary news about the flight's mechanical problems. ...It was the time for a heavenly 911, emergency intervention! L asked J whether he could access the TLIG website online. But of course, there was no internet/signal inside of the airplane. J scrolled his email inbox, and happily found a daily TLIG message from the day before which we hadn't read. And here is what Jesus said:
I am by your side determined to protect you, to encourage you
Personal Message
My Peace I give to you, Vassula; befriend Me and be loyal to Me; all love heals, it heals your sins, repeat after Me these words:
“Glory be to God,” daughter, grant Me the favour to focus on Me, so that I enlighten your mind, your spirit and your heart; daughter, you delight Me when you focus on Me and you have felt the abundant love from Me filling your heart when you do so; ah, Vassula, learn that I am by your side determined to protect you, to encourage you, to console you and give you hope;
lean on Me, flower, let Me draw your steps closer to Me and in Me; allow Me, Vassula ‘mou,’1 to use you for My plan, and ‘mi stenakhoriesé, tha ta kanoniso ola egho; ella pethi mou; all Glory is Mine, daughter ‘aghapa-mé;’ ic
1 Greek translation: allow Me, My Vassula to use you for My plan, and do not be sad, I will sort out (fix) everything Myself; come, My child; all Glory is Mine, daughter love Me;
A message written in February, meant for us also to read in the same month of February! And we laughed out loud when we read the words in the footnote: "I will sort out (fix) everything Myself " It was so comforting to hear, and so grounded and serene. We felt like reading the Message for all the people on board, if we could.
Finally, the pilot announced that they found the solution to the problem. We were about to take off again, taxiing towards the runway, with the engines on, when we noticed there was an unpleasant and unusual smell, some “fumes” inside the airplane cabin, which finally drove a passenger onboard to request to get off, and exit the airplane. Consequently, the Pilot announced that all the passengers had to deplane, as it related to following strict procedures. With an overnight stay, the next day the flight was rescheduled twice from 11 AM to 3PM. Back on the same airplane, with still a hint of a 'weird smell', by the grace of Jesus' intervention everything worked out! The anxiety of the previous day was not able to come back, and we enjoyed our safe and peaceful flight back!
Jesus fixes everything HIMSELF! Thank You Jesus!
Love & blessings!
JL