A spiritual answer that “gave the whole airplane a reason to be grateful”

My wife and I were flying from the West Coast straight to Boston to attend Association, bringing our son with us. Our son was very young and did not have the same idea about the flight as we did. He was fine during the first thirty minutes when everyone was boarding, but soon after, he was ready to run around!

At that time my son was fond of communicating his discomfort with a situation by using the words “Ow, Ow,” as if he were being hurt, although physically he was fine. He was soon crying out this way on the airplane.

As his cries grew progressively louder, I heard my wife ask me, “How long do you think this will last?” I recall saying, “For the next five hours.” I was attempting to resign myself to the idea that it would be a very painful flight, as I assumed the passengers around us were acutely aware of our condition. I had no material answers or solutions, and felt cornered, so to speak, and out of options.

Then I happened to glance through the seats in front of us and noticed someone reading a computer printout. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be interesting if this lady were reading notes about Association? I looked a little closer and noticed that the page heading said “Association.” When I looked even closer, I could see that the printout included citations from Science and Health with marginal headings and line numbers. Wow.

As the lady in front of us was walking by, my wife and I were able to get her attention and introduce ourselves. We soon confirmed that we were all in Skip’s Association! What a wonderful connection.

The best part of the trip ended up being this Association member’s ability to work with little children. She is a first-grade teacher and graciously offered to read a book to our son. As she held him in her lap, we handed up book after book between the airplane seats. Another young child in the seat next to her enjoyed the stories, too.

Besides giving us time for our own quiet thinking, this spiritual answer to the material challenge healed the situation and gave the whole airplane a reason to be grateful for this demonstration of Association.

Soon it was time to land and our son was fast asleep. He even slept through the deboarding process!

Thanks to God for this gift of Association!