My wife, Heather, and I were able to escape for a few days last week, drive to Galveston, and hop on a 4-night Carnival cruise to Cozumel, Mexico and back again. If you haven't been on a cruise before, I highly recommend it. It basically consists of days and nights of eating, lounging, eating, sight-seeing, eating, meeting new people, and eating. We have been on so many of them in our 14 years of marriage that we have honestly lost count.
Something happened on this one, however, that I will never forget. Even though we were sailing on the Carnival Triumph, the ship might as well have been called the Carnival Serendipity.
On our last full day at sea coming back to Galveston, Heather and I had gone to the grill at the back of the ship for a late-afternoon snack of french fries and chicken fingers (remember, we were on vacation). I got up from the table to refill my drink and when I got back, Heather had a concerned look on her face. She looked at me and said, "Those two ladies over there are crying hard." I looked to my left and about 20 yards from me, I saw two ladies who looked to be in their 50s sobbing. They were talking in hushed tones and after drying their tears, would begin to cry again. It was an incongruous element on the back deck of a cruise ship filled with kids yelling as they jumped in the pool, sun worshippers slathered up and laying face up or face down on deck chairs, and a fat bass beat coming from the loud speakers. To be honest, I probably would not have noticed them had it not been for Heather (thank you, Lord, for blessing me with a wife who is exponentially more sensitive to people in need than I am!).
We glanced at them every few minutes until they got up to leave the area. I guess they had seen us looking their way and felt like they needed to explain because they walked right to our table and without any introduction, one of them began to tell her story.
Her father had a bad case of pnuemonia before she had left on the cruise, but was supposed to be just fine. In the three days since she had left, however, there had been complications and her father's health had taken a bad turn. So bad that her first words to us were, "I'm about to lose my father." She had been contacted by the authorities on the ship and been told the awful news. Since we were in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, there was no way for her to leave the ship. They told her there would be a car waiting to take her to the airport first thing the next morning and that she would be flown back to her home so that she could spend a few last minutes with her father.
Heather and I watched as waves of pain, grief, and guilt washed over her face. I had no idea what to do execpt to ask her name. She replied, "Jana." I said back to her, "Jana, I am the Pastor of a church back in Houston. Would you mind if I said a word of prayer with you?"
I will always remember the look on Jana's face. It was a mixture of shock and relief. She immediately took my hand and said, "Oh, please, would you?" She called her friend, and together, Jana, her friend, Heather, and I joined hands and prayed on the back deck of the Carnival Triumph over a half-eaten plate of chicken fingers and fries. We prayed for a man that I had never met and will never meet, and for the comforting presence of Almighty God to be close to his grieving daughter. We all hugged, and Jana and her friend went on their way. We never saw them again.
I am thankful today for the serendipitous grace of God that throws people together who can find value in each other and can agree together. There is a fellowship among believers in Christ that those who do not believe will never understand, but so desperately seek. I hope that Jana made it back to wherever she is from before her father died. I hope that she knows that during this week, which certainly must be a week filled with pain and loss, that she is being remembered in League City, Texas.
Most of all, I hope that you and I will keep our eyes and ears alert to the needs of others, even when (especially when?) we are on vacation, and will be ready to help them if we can. Let me be clear: this is not a story about how great I am because I prayed with a stranger on a cruise ship. It is a story about how great God is because he serendipitously sent a stranger for me to pray with on a cruise ship. And He does this all the time.
I don't know when I will get to cruise on the Carnival Triumph again, but may we remember that we all sail on the Carnival Serendipity every single day.
Awesome story brother! Thank you so much for sharing it!
ReplyDeleteI love how God arranges meetings like this.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you & Heather were able to get away for a few days too.
I was beginning to wonder if I needed to pester you about writing another post though... :)