Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

My times are in your hands; …

• Psalm 31:15a

“Arriving at the hotel I asked the kindly Indian man who was in charge of my arrangements, ‘Is there no possibility that I can catch another plane to Vellore?’
“ ‘The airlines are making every effort,’ he assured me.
“ ‘Then we must pray that God will help them,’ I said.
“ ‘Do you profess to be a Christian?” he asked with a startled look on his face.
“ ‘Yes, I do,’ I answered. ‘I am a professor of Jesus Christ. And what about you?’
“He hung his head. ‘I have been, but I am what you call a lost sheep.’
“ ‘Hallelujah!’ I said. ‘Then you are just the one sheep for whom the Shepherd left the ninety-nine to find.’ We talked a long time in the lobby of the hotel. Finally I asked the man if he would be willing to come back to Jesus. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘For I believe God kept you here just for this reason.’
“We prayed together in the hotel and then I said to him, ‘Now that God has used me for this miracle will you pray with me for another miracle—that I might arrive in Vellore in time for the conference?’
“The man leaped to his feet. ‘While you pray I must run an errand. I’ll be back shortly.’ With that he was out the door, leaving me sitting among my suitcases.
“Half-an-hour later he was back. ‘Make quickly ready for the plane,’ he said. ‘I think God has performed your miracle. We have discovered another plane going by a different route to Vellore.’
“ ‘Did you arrange that?’ I asked.
“ ‘I did,’ he smiled as he hoisted my bags to his back. ‘But don’t thank me. I must thank you for bringing me back to the Shepherd.’
“We rushed madly to the airport and I found the plane was supposed to have left long before. However, they were holding it just for me. Panting, I climbed the steps to the plane.
“ ‘Ah, Professor,’ the stewardess said as she closed the door behind me, ‘we were afraid we would have to leave you.’
“ ‘Professor?’ I asked. ‘What’s this?’
“ ‘Oh,’ she smiled sweetly. ‘We know all about you. Our hotel agent told us that you are an important professor from Holland who has to give significant speeches in Vellore. That is why we have held the plane on the ground until you arrived.’
“I took my seat near a window. Outside the once-lost sheep was grinning and waving. I waved back. Surely, I thought, God not only had a special reason for keeping me in Bangkok, but He must have an equally important reason for wanting me in Vellore.
“I was right. …”

• Corrie ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord

She had been stranded in Thailand, but by the agent at the hotel, she reached Vellore, a city in southeastern India.  She gave a message the next morning.  A woman, a missionary from the area, spoke to her afterwards.  She asked if Tante Corrie was a doctor, and could she heal people?  Corrie ten Boom said that God did the healing, but she could lay hands upon the person and pray for them.  The woman said that she was the one who was sick, and Tante Corrie said she would lay hands on her and pray.  Corrie placed her hands on the woman and prayed.  It was only then that the woman said, “I have leprosy.”

Corrie ten Boom knew that if she recoiled, the woman would take that to be fear, but she apologized if the woman had seen her slight moment of fear.

Years later, she was at another conference and a beautiful woman approached her and asked, “Do you remember me?”  Corrie said that she vaguely looked familiar, but she could not place where she had seen the woman.  The woman then said, “You prayed, and God healed me.  I am the leper from Vellore.”

Well, I have told this story, but it fits so well here.

My wife went to a wedding in Houston, Texas.  She was on kidney dialysis, and they tried to change her appointment time to the same time as the wedding.  She was polite, but she stated why she was there and then she sat in the lobby, unwilling to leave and come back later.  After four days of this type of constant excuses, her return flight was cancelled.  She stood in line, something very hard for her to do in her condition, but the wheelchair only took her to the gate with the cancelled flight.  Everyone in front of her was getting flights the next day or the day after.

She called me and asked how she should handle this.  I told her to tell the guy that you were on kidney dialysis and if you missed your 7:00am dialysis in Pittsburgh, PA the next morning, the airline would have to arrange something in Houston.  No threats.  No anger.  Just make a statement.

When it was her turn, she started to say what I told her to say, “I am on kidney dialysis…”

The guy behind the counter turned to the person next to him and ordered a wheelchair.  He saw her destination on the ticket she proffered him.  When the wheelchair arrived, he told the transportation person the gate number and the flight was for West Palm Beach, Florida.  My wife said she was going to Pittsburgh, and he nodded and mentioned that there was a connecting flight.  But the Florida plane was delayed.  It’s new arrival time would be roughly thirty minutes after the connecting flight had left Florida.

In the meantime, I only knew her new flight numbers.  I went to the airline status page online.  It showed the connecting flight had already left for Pittsburgh.  Then it showed her flight arriving.  I went into a panic when she never called with a new flight number.  In fact, the last available flight that night was cancelled.  All the airline personnel that I talked to said that I could be a criminal that was stealing her identity.  I could not prove I was her husband.

But unknown to me, the flight arrived late and no one was allowed to leave the aircraft until a wheelchair had picked up my wife and ran her, literally, to her connecting flight that had told the passengers that there was a technical difficulty with the plane.  They knew that was a lie because there were no repairmen working on the plane.  Thirty minutes later, my wife was wheeled in, and she took her seat.  All the passengers applauded, and several people stood to give her a standing ovation.

You see, the airline had no legitimate reason to hold the plane that long.  The computer logged into the internet that the plane had left on time.  Just as I hung up the phone with yet another airline call center, after the West Palm Beach airport was no help.  I sat with my head in my hands.  My wife was lost in Florida and somehow, she was unable to turn her phone on.  Then the phone rang.  It was my wife.  “Where are you?  I am at the airport waiting for you!”

I asked, “What airport?”

“Pittsburgh!  Where else?!”

Sometimes the right word needs to be said.  But God had a lot to do with my wife making it home that night.  Half a night’s sleep, but she made it safely.

In Tante Corrie’s case, she led a man back to faith and she prayed so that God would cure a leper who was also a missionary.  And the flight arrangements had to be just so.  We should not rely on humans, but God sometimes uses those humans to perform His miracles.

Lord, strengthen me.  When my wife was on her way home, I had no idea You had already taken care of the situation.  Indeed, my worrying did nothing.  I was praying, but I was also trusting the information that the computer gave me.  All that I could conclude was that she was lost in Florida with no dialysis scheduled there and no place to spend the night.  But my wife was in Your hands.  And now she is in Your hands eternally.  I wonder if she remembers, now while in the arms of Jesus, that one day when she was treated like the crown princess of some foreign land?  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.