Journey made smooth

Kishore   

At the airport

During December 2001 Christmas vacation I went with family to Phoenix where my brother stays. Due to recent terrorist attacks there are lot of security checks and it was better to reach airport early instead of missing flights. So while going to Phoenix from San Jose airport we came almost 3 hours early to airport only to find that there are no queues and we just had to wait in the airport till our flight time. 

We stayed 4 days in Phoenix and started back on a Sunday. Our return flight was at 8 AM. Since we already found going early to airport is not really required we thought we can go a little late. Even my brother said usually there are no major queues at Phoenix airport. We started from home at 6 AM and as we reached airport at 6.30 AM we had a surprise. There were long queues outside the airport. It looked like we will miss our flight. I still had faith in God that somehow we will make it without any problem. We got into the queue without any delay at the curb side. It took around 20 minutes before we could clear the queue and go inside. Before we could relax we found another queue inside which was much longer at the security check point. It was quite long and I was not sure what is going to happen. As we were getting anxious one of the airport security officers came and announced that people who have their flight within next 30 minutes can go to another line. That was a relief and we immediately moved to the other queue and cleared the security checks faster and reached the gate from which our flight will leave 10 minutes before departure time.

Lost baggage restored

After the above mentioned journey we reached San Jose and found that one of the items we checked-in didn't arrive with rest of our baggage. Since this was first time it happened my wife was worried whether we will get it back and she kept some of the items she shopped and bought in the missed baggage. I made a complaint at the airline lost baggage counter and returned home. We were told that the luggage will be sent home as soon as possible. As far as I know it would take a day to return the baggage. But in our case not only the baggage was found early but it was sent to our home within 3 hours much to relief of my wife. 

 Are the above incidents miracles? What do such experiences convey? I consider these experiences as blessings of eliminating trouble that can potentially cause lot of inconvenience. Beside this the major factor is trust and faith in God that enable me to retain my mental calmness even when things go wrong is what makes the experiences significant. I keep praying to God to help me retain my faith and trust in him even under extremely trying circumstances and bless me so that I can share his grace with others. 

Jai Sriram, Jai Hanuman

May 2002