You’ll never believe what happened to my wheelchair on my last trip!
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and recently when I was flying to Tennessee for a convention, I had to make a transfer in Dallas. It meant bringing up my wheelchair from the belly of the American Airlines jet so I could use it until my next flight. When I boarded the plane to Nashville and transferred into my seat, they took my wheelchair to be loaded in the baggage compartment. Well, when I arrived late that evening in Nashville, they couldn’t find my wheelchair. We waited and waited, then finally the airline supervisor and the gate agent told us that my wheelchair had been accidentally flown to Orlando, Florida (I’ve lost foot pedals and seat cushions before, but never the whole wheelchair)! I mean, this was quite a fix we were in – it meant me sitting in a clunky airport wheelchair with a low back until they could fly my chair from Florida to Nashville which, we were told, could take another couple of hours. Well, we didn’t know what else to do but pray – so right there on the airplane, with a flight attendant and one of the ground crew guys, Ken prayed that what was lost would be found.
How did God answer prayer? Well, by the time we loaded our things in the hotel shuttle van, the airport supervisor who, by this time, with getting to know us well, said they couldn’t get the chair on a flight from Florida to Nashville – it would have to be rerouted to Dallas and then flown in the next day.
Now… we had prayed about this. And I couldn’t quite understand why God was allowing these things to happen. Without a proper wheelchair, I’d have to stay in bed the next day and miss our scheduled appointment at the convention. I prayed, “What are you doing, God?” But you know, as I watched my husband Ken talk to the airport supervisor and the agent who were still working on the problem, I knew what the Lord was doing… we thought we were in Nashville to sow Gospel seeds among people at the convention; but God was more interested in the people at the airport.
And he showed his interest in them through Ken. Because late that night and throughout the next morning, Ken was connecting with airline ground crew guys, flight attendants, supervisors – and with each person, he was such a good ambassador for Jesus; he presented a calm spirit, great smile, a powerful witness for Christ, and he gave everyone a “Joni’s Story” tract (he kept borrowing them off Rainey, my traveling buddy, who always brings a bunch of Gospel tracts on our trips). By Saturday afternoon when my wheelchair finally arrived at the airport, almost all of American Airlines knew about Ken and the lost chair.
Yes, we were able to meet our goals at the convention, but I will always remember this particular trip for all the unexpected “divine appointments” – all the unexpected, unlikely people God placed in our path. And by the way, we have wheelchairs heading out to Romania and Ukraine this week as part of our Wheels for the World outreach… would you please pray that none of them go AWOL? That all our wheelchairs end up at their correct destinations? We don’t want any wayward chairs getting lost!
Finally, going back to what happened at the Nashville airport, may I encourage you to look for those unexpected divine appointments with people God puts in your path today? They may not be in your schedule, but they sure are in the Lord’s.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
© Joni and Friends