The kids and I had a great time visiting my sister in Colorado, but the vacation was over and it was time to return home to Alaska.  We were scheduled to take the red-eye out of Denver, switch planes in Seattle, then on to Anchorage and hop a another flight into Kodiak.  Not too bad a trip on your own, but I was traveling with three kids and a 30 pound diaper bag.  We arrived to the airport early, checked in, then made the long trek to the departure gate to wait.

I asked the gate agent at the departure counter if I needed to check in there also….her reply was a negative.  I just needed to wait til the plane was ready to board.  The waiting area was empty when we arrived and as we sat and waited  I watched the other people slowly begin to arrive.   Eventually a long line formed as they checked in at the gate.  I wasn’t worried, after all I was the first person there and the gate attendant had said I didn’t need to check in there also.  Well, finally I got in line and asked another agent why everyone was in line.  Turns out they were checking in and I wouldn’t make that flight despite having been the first person to arrive and check in.  The airlines put us up in a hotel and gave us vouchers for breakfast.

We slept well, enjoyed breakfast, then boarded the plane to Seattle.  We arrived uneventfully in Seattle and switched planes heading on to Anchorage.  All was going great.  When we arrived in Anchorage a flight had just arrived back from Kodiak (the weather was bad and they hadn’t been able to land).  Uh oh, trouble.  I had seen many flights in Alaska ‘weathered out’ and tried to get us on the next flight into Kodiak, but it was already booked up.  The gate agent scheduled us on the next flight.  The kids played and ate a snack.  About two and a half hours later the flight we missed came back.  The same people who had boarded it just shortly before now deplaned and filed back into the airport.  As soon as the former passengers had vacated the plane it was our turn and we boarded the little banana peel, turbo prop plane.  I said a quick heartfelt prayer as this was our only chance for the day to make it home.  If this flight didn’t make it in I was stuck with three kids in Anchorage for the night.  An hour and fifteen minutes later we touched down, the  first flight to land into Kodiak in three days!

All things really do work together.  If we would have made our original flight in Denver we would have spent the night on the airplane and switched flights in the middle of the night in Seattle, then arrived in Anchorage in the early morning.  We may have made a trip or two from Anchorage to Kodiak and back to Anchorage or hung out in the airport all day and not made it home at all.  No fun at all with three kids who were about 3, 5 and 8 at the time.   In the meantime we slept in a hotel, had breakfast provided and spent a short time in the Anchorage airport while the kids unwound for a bit, then got on the airplane and made it home.  Pretty amazing how God can work things out when you don’t even know you need help.

Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”