Grace Community Christian Church

 

Archived Things Above

Lost Luggage (1/30/08)

The panic started before the plane even started up the engines. "That's my bag over there! I can't believe it, they didn't even load our bags!" Sure enough, there, on the tarmac, sat a red suitcase with a yellow strap around it. She was traveling to Miami with her two sons & their wives, & in no time at all, they were all aghast at the bad fortune that had befallen them before they had literally even "gotten off the ground."

The flight attendant's words of encouragement fell on deaf ears. "That may not even be your bad, ma'am," he tried to say before he was cut off. "Of course that's my bag! You think I don't even know my own bag? I put the yellow strap on it especially so I could easily identify it. I can't believe the incompetence of an airline to push away from the gate while a passenger's bags are sitting right there on the tarmac! I insist that you do something. Now!" Of course, all the various relatives chimed in their thoughts on the subject, as well. Under withering attack from every direction, all the poor flight attendant could do was retreat to the cubby kitchen on the other side of the bulkhead. For him, this short flight had suddenly gotten much longer.

One of the daughters-in-law was sitting next to Kim, in the aisle seat. She read with intense interest Royal Caribbean's travel guide, which includes a section on Lost Luggage Reimbursement. I'm pretty sure she had it all memorized. $500 per person isn't much, but they all had it spent on cruise-wear by the time we touched down in Ft. Lauderdale.

So imagine their surprise when the baggage claim belt spat out a red suitcase with a yellow strap. Along with about a gazillion other red bags with yellow straps. I don't know if Oprah recently ran a story about personalizing your luggage for easier identification & retrieval, but I swear every other piece of luggage had a bright colored strap on it!

Turns out the flight attendant was right. Turns out the airline was pretty competent after all. Turns out they weren't going to get that $500 per person after all. They weren't going to be inconvenienced or wronged or disappointed after all. All that worry, all that complaining, all that whining & negative energy & "what if's" & "I"m gonnas" & "you betters"- all wasted.

I'm guessing next time I'm at an airport & see a red bag with a yellow strap around it, I'm going to think of something Jesus once said: "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?" (Matthew 6:25, italics mine)

In fact, I think I'll buy a couple of those bright yellow straps myself, & write "Matthew 6:25" in bold, permanent ink on every one of them, so that no matter where life's journeys take me, I'll be reminded that God always knows where my bags are!


Jim Dewar --