I had finally found my seat 18F on the airplane headed to Atlanta, Georgia I sat down put my carry on beneath my seat, buckled my seat belt, and then grabbed my journal and headphones. I put my headphones on and began to memorize the verses for training camp, because I had procrastinated until the plane ride to do them…just typical me. I sat there for a while myself waiting to find out who I would be sitting next to, but I looked around and everyone was out of the aisles, it looked like I had my own row! Untill, this scrawny guy with black in his gums, and an unshaven face runs through the aisle and sits right next to me. To be one hundred percent honest, I was a little anxious and scared when he sat down, as I am a young girl and he was a man in his 30’s. Anyway, he introduced himself to me, let’s say his name was Max, I said hello out of respect, politneds, and trying to be a decent human being, and introduced myself as well. I put my headphones back on as I really didn’t feel comfortable talking to this man. But he continued to pursue having a conversation asking why I was flying to Atlanta, and at that point I realized, “God is giving me an oppurtunity to plant a seed in this man’s life, this is an opportunity God is giving me to share His great love with this man and I don’t want to miss an oppurtinity to be used by God.”
As time went on and we began talking, he basically told me his life story. Back in January of 2016 he got in an awful quad accident, his ribs broke and one of them penatrated his lung. He was on life support, lost over 40 ibs in the hospital and had a 20% chance of living. While this was going on, his girlfriend, who was also the mother of his 10 year old daughter, didn’t show any compassion towards the fact that her boyfriend and father of her child was dying, and simply asked him when he was going to send her the child support and what would happen if he died. Prior to this his girlfiriend had cheated on him, but he forgave her. After all the operations and lots of recovery, Max got addicted to perkiset that he had been taking for pain, he still went to work everyday and sent the checks to his girlfriend to help provide for his daughter. He said that his daughter’s smile was what kept him going through all the pain and the heart ache. However he continued with the drugs and In February of 2017 his mom passed away, she was survived by 6 children, one of them being Max. Then in the spring, Max’s girlfriend cheated on him again and this time he said, im done. And they broke up. Then a few months later his best friend killed himself.
My heart was breaking for this man, and I felt pushed by the Holy Spirit to share some real truths with him. I told him that God kept him alive and healed him for a reason, that God’s hand is over his life and that it may be hard to understand, but everything happens for a reason because God has a greater plan for our lives that we can’t understand. He kept saying “you have such a positive attitude” or “you’re such a kind girl” and things like that, and I just kept telling him that God gives me joy, even in hard situations. So I shared with him how I struggled with hard things in my life and how God helped me through them. I sadly never got around to actually sharing the full gospel with him, but it was amazing because this man was not rejecting what the Lord was saying through me. He simply would nod his head and would sometimes say, “that’s my mom looking out for me”. And I would say, “no, it’s all God, he loves us more than we can ever comprehend.”
As the conversation continued I shared my life story with him and many struggles I’ve had, I wanted to show him that this “kind girl” wasn’t perfect by any means, just because I chose to follow God doesn’t make my life easy, but it makes it 100 time more bearable and hope-filled.
The reason Max was flying to Atlanta was because he was going to his sister’s house to take some time to himself and try to recover and be away from distractions. He wanted to change, he knew he wasn’t living his best life when he was surrounded by drugs and pain. He wanted to be his old self, and he said that when he was leaving his daughter wouldn’t let go as she was hugging him and he said “I have to leave for a little while so I can become the old daddy.” This man is looking for change and I pray that a God will use the seeds he planted through me to sprout into a faith that can’t be shaken and a hope that Max can do anything when God is on his side. I pray that one day he walks by a church and remembers that “kind girl” from that plane ride and goes in out of curiosity. But it’s all in God’s hands now and by praying for Max I am trusting that God will take care of him, I know he will. It was best because as I was getting off the plane I was able to tell him that I would be praying for his recovering. I pray that he can fully recover and be free from the bondage of addiction, but ultimately I pray that he finds the freedom from being a slave to sin.
I won‘t lie. There were a couple times that Max said things that made me uncomfortable, but I simply ignored them (as they were harmless, if I seriously felt threathend, or unsafe I wouldn’t have done what I did) because I felt God telling me that he was going to use me as a messenger to share some really cold hard truths with Max. It’s because sometimes we have to be uncomfortable to make other people feel comfortable, in other words, we have to step out of our comfort zone to step into other people’s. Did I want to share some deep struggles in my life with a total stranger? No. But will I do anything to further the kingdom of God? Yes.
After we got off the plane a woman walked up to me and said, “I wasnt easdropping, but I overheard your conversation on the plane and it is amazing what you are going to do (talking about the world race).” I was shocked as this woman was sitting nearly four rows ahead of me on the plane, and I was a little embarrassed as I didn’t realize how loudly I was speaking on the plane, but I was also excited because that means that more people heard God‘s truths. I know of don’t intend but I’m sure God did! I knew he gave me a loud voice for something! Haha
God gives us oppurtunites in the oddest places to share Him with others and I thought we were going to start ministry after training camp, but God said “nope, Colleen, you are gonna start ministry before you even get to training camp. We must take hold of every single oppurtunity because, they are so precious and we should be excited because God wants to use YOU to further his kingdom. Im so excited for more airplane ministry to come in the next year!!! Yay God!!!
