I don't think I'm alone in this, but I have days of deep discontentment. Sometimes it's something I've done, or more often, not done that discouraged me and sometimes it's unexplainable.

I don't believe in chance encounters or coincidences. I can't tell you how often I've left for work feeling downtrodden, only to discover God arranged me to fly with just the fellow flight attendant I needed to get my focus off myself and onto Him. I experienced one of these Divine encounters not too long ago.

We only did an Orlando turn together, but it allowed just enough "jumpseat therapy" to fill me up with a renewed assurance that God is lovingly in control and that nothing is impossible with Him.

I can't even remember her name, just her story. She had recently experienced what all of us hope never to experience: a passenger died on her flight. A woman and her daughter were returning from a trip to London, just the two of them. Sometime during the flight the woman told a flight attendant that she wasn't feeling well, maybe just indigestion? They offered up what they could to alleviate her discomfort, even offering to page for a doctor if they wanted her to. She didn't think it necessary and the crew didn't think much more about it.

This girl I was sharing a jumpseat with said the woman and her daughter weren't even seated in her section but when she was walking through the cabin and noticed the girl sitting by herself, she asked her how her mother was doing. The girl answered that her mother said she was feeling a little better, but she'd been in the bathroom for quite a long time.

Horrifyingly enough it was soon discovered she'd passed away in there. From that point on, this flight attendant never left this girl's side. When they arrived in Detroit she assured her she would stay with her, even ride in the ambulance with her to the hospital. When she was told she wouldn't be able to accompany her in the ambulance she remembered that she'd inexplicably driven from Grand Rapids rather than flying into Detroit. Her rare decision to drive meant she  had her car and could drive to the hospital! She was there in no time to take up her place again at the girl's side. She booked a room at a hotel and stayed there with her until her dad arrived from Wisconsin the following morning.

A week later and she was back at the airport to fly the same London trip. She was feeling down, still affected from the trauma of her last trip. She was especially feeling melancholy about turning her phone off and being incommunicado for the next three days. The phone rang just as she was getting it out to turn off.

Surprisingly, it was her brother-in-law from California. He called to relay a story he had just heard from one of his friends. He thought she would find it interesting. Turns out his friend's best friend had just lost his wife on one of our flights. When he finished giving her all the details (having no idea that she was actually on the flight), he said, "And this is the good part...God put an angel on that flight to watch over his daughter, this 'angel' never left her side until her dad got there...isn't that a sweet story?"

Only an awesome, all powerful, loving God could arrange all those details! She wasn't planning on driving to work that day, but when she dropped off her young son at school, she'd unfathomably decided she wanted to drive to work. Then, just when she was at her lowest point and just minutes before she turned her phone off, her brother-in-law calls her out of the blue because he'd just gotten off the phone with his friend and thought she'd find his story interesting.

What a much needed boost of encouragement and joy this sweet flight attendant received at just the right moment!

 A missionary once defined fellowship as making God larger together. That flight attendant certainly made God larger for me that day. God ordained, sweet fellowship. Does it get any better than that?