“As I see God’s goodness and greatness, I am filled with love and life and light, which is the fountain of living waters.”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’
Last week I mentioned I had another amazing story of being guided to the right place at the right time on my trip to and from Utah.
Normally when I fly out to these events in Utah, my first choice is to fly from Buffalo through JFK to Vegas or through Salt Lake City to St. George. But this time I just had a feeling I shouldn’t fly through Buffalo. More than once I’ve been caught in late January Buffalo blizzards and just gotten out in time via the last Amtrak train. So my gut said fly out of Toronto this time.
I tried to find a flight from Hamilton to save money on parking but no luck. Toronto it was. Westjet had a flight through Calgary that would get me into Las Vegas on Tuesday evening. That’s that flight I mentioned last week.
For the return trip, normally I fly out on Sunday. The event runs Thursday to Saturday and I book my flight out Sunday morning. This time I just felt I needed to leave Saturday evening. I would have to leave as soon as the event ended and race down to Las Vegas to take a red-eye special home.
When I booked the flight, the first leg from Las Vegas to Calgary would arrive just after midnight but the second flight wouldn’t leave until 7am. I’d have time to get a few hours of sleep at a hotel before flying out.
This is where the universe really started to up its game.
I learned that my dear friend Pam was in Calgary recovering from cancer treatments. If I could change that second flight to later in the day, I could rent a car and visit her before flying home.
Westjet’s schedule showed there are flights to Toronto every two hours all day! I could fly out at 11 or 1 or 3 or 5. Provided of course that there was a seat available.
Another friend called from Calgary, she was available to do breakfast together before my visit to see Pam.
My husband Matt suggested I stay an extra night but I kept feeling like I should still fly home that day and the 1pm flight would be my best bet. I would only have an hour for breakfast with Janet and an hour to visit Pam but it still felt like what I was supposed to do.
And the airline was able to book my change in flight and my friend Janet’s house was on the way to see Pam and it all worked out perfectly. The car rental place stayed open late until my flight got in so I had a car to drive. I had a good night’s sleep. Breakfast with Janet and her sister was a lovely time to catch up and it was wonderful to see Pam and how well she was recovering from all her surgeries and treatments.
I then made my way back to the airport. I returned the car and made my way to security.
This was where my luck seemed to change. Calgary airport security staff were fussy about my liquids and made me throw out my small bottle of facial cleanser because my collection of bottles wouldn’t fit in their specified ziplock bag. It fit in my clear bag but not their clear bag.
I took a deep breath and tossed out the least expensive bottle I had. Another deep breath and I walked through the metal detector and scanner.
All good. Except as I went to collect all my belongings my laptop had been flagged.
“Excuse me miss, is this your laptop?”
“Yes”
“Well it has a trace amount of a chemical on it and we have to rescan all our belongings, search them and do a pat down search of your person.”
Great! They rescanned my stuff. One woman came over to pat me down. Another began a complete search of my bags, emptying everything out of my purse, feeling through every piece of clothing and laundry in my suitcase while another woman came over to begin asking me questions.
“Do you use chemicals on a regular basis?”
“What kind of chemicals? I clean my house but that’s about it”
“Mam, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m an author, speaker and a coach” Then I thought to add “I work with cancer moms, moms whose children have cancer.” Hopefully they will see that I’m a good person doing good things and recognise that I’m not a terrorist.
The woman searching my bags turns to me and asks, “You work with cancer moms? Moms whose kids have cancer?”
“Yes, I provide resources and I have a book and a podcast and we designed daily planners that we give to moms whose children are on treatment.”
She then starts to tell me that her 14 year old daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was 7 years old and she is going for her next MRI in a week.
Now it all starts to make sense. The only reason I was being searched was because I needed to meet this mom.
She shared her struggles and asked how she could connect with me. I gave her my website and contact information and I told her that she could pick up a free planner at Calgary Children’s Hospital.
I had gone from rolling my eyes at the thought of being searched to recognizing everything the universe had to do to get me her security line while she was on duty and make it possible for us to connect.
It is at moments like this that I know God is watching over everything and makes miracles happen in order to answer our prayers.
I am so grateful that our paths were able to cross and I could offer support to this amazing mom working so hard while worrying and praying for her daughter.
Have you ever felt like the universe has been guiding you to the right place and the right time so you could bless the lives of others? I would love to hear your stories.
“There are miracles everywhere and can be found in every circumstance if we look for them.”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’