Small Miracles

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

This morning, I saw that Rachel posed a question on her blog dealing with recognizing miracles.

I actually had checked the archives of Beer Lahai Roi last night to see if I had related a particular story of a small...very small...miracle that happened last fall.

And I certainly didn't recognize it at the time.

It was en route to DIVE.  You may remember my mention of the fact that it was the first time I had been on an airplane since 1999.

Flying has changed a LOT since 1999.

The day started off with tornado sirens at 3 AM...which was something like 45 minutes to an hour before the alarm was to go off.  The storm was not threatening us, but there was no reason to try and make up the rest of my sleep.

When we got to the airport, My Sweet Baboo walked me through the check in process. When I got my boarding passes, he looked at it and commented, 'Oh...they Fast Passed you'.  Didn't really mean much in our airport-run-out-of-the-back-of-a-hotel that had no one in any lines, but, well, ok.  I kissed him good-bye, put my bag on the conveyer belt walked through security.

About 30 minutes before my flight was to board, I bought a bottle of water and took a Dramamine tablet.  Air travel and my tummy don't always play nice together, and I've learned that fasting and Dramamine go a long way to prevent humiliation.  But Dramamine does make me  kinda woozy.

Better than puking.

We were delayed before takeoff...the same line of storms that had set off the sirens at 3AM were hitting Atlanta and they had shut it down for a bit...but I had a 2 hour layover, plus I figured all outgoing flights would be delayed as well so I really wasn't worried.  Once we were cleared, the flight to ATL was uneventful all around.  But I was really sleepy.


Of course, I had to change concourses.  But my connecting flight was showing as being delayed, so no problems.  I actually enjoyed the brisk walk from concourse E to concourse T.

However, I could NOT find the gate I was to exit from.  Gate T 9.  I looked and looked.  I found 1 - 8, and I found 11 - 15 or whatever that top number was, but gates 9 and 10 were, like, nowhere.

Then I noticed a set of revolving doors in the general area where I thought 9 and 10 should be. 'Oh,' I thought, 'There must be a hallway there.'

And I went through those double doors.

All you experienced travelers are no doubt laughing at me, but keep in mind I had not been in an airport in over 15 years.

Of course, what I had just done was leave the secured area.

TSA Guards have NO compassion.  I couldn't get any answers out of anyone except that now I had to go back through the security line.

Which was a LOT longer than the line at our local airport.

But I had the Fast Pass.  The TSA Agent was not very nice about the half bottle of water that was in my back pack, but I told him to throw it away and, feeling rather humbled, bought another bottle once I got back onto the concourse.

Then I texted my Traveling Buddy...thanks to Rita, I'd made contact with another lady heading to DIVE who was on the same flight...and asked her where gate 9 was.

'We're at gate 6,' she texted back.

Facepalm.  I'd gotten one of my seat numbers confused with the gate number.

Sleep deprived and on Dramamine.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It wasn't until about Tuesday that it hit me...if I had not had the Fast Pass, I would've had to stand in the regular line.  Which was very long.  And we only had about 40 minutes until we boarded.

I might've missed my flight...but God had made sure I had what I needed before I needed it.

If He did it then...He will do it again.

Incidentally, I did NOT get a Fast Pass on the return trip, but that was ok.  I had learned from the first mistake. :-)