At the airport in California recently, I came close to departing with the identical bag of a fellow traveler, a gate-checked carry-on. The man looked vaguely familiar to me. We joked a little about the close call and double-checked to make sure we each had the right bag before we continued on our way. Headed in the same direction, my husband and I followed behind him and his wife. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him from somewhere, that I not only knew him but had conversed with him at length, but then I put it out of my mind and didn’t notice where they went. When he came out of the Men’s Room just ahead of my husband, I blurted out, “I know you. What is your name?”
It turns out I almost made off with the bag of Elder Bruce Hafen. We had met five years ago in Germany, when he was headquartered there at the Church offices near the temple in Frankfurt. Because of a family connection, I had ventured up to his office in hopes of having a chance to shake the hand of someone who had been my dear departed first husband’s first home teaching companion, when Paul was a young priest. He had been one among many who befriended Paul after the death of his father, and I knew that Paul had always looked up to him. Elder Hafen very graciously visited with me for the better part of an hour, telling me a few new stories about Paul. Before I left, he asked if there was anything he could do for me. I thought how nice it would be for our son to hear the stories he had told me, from the source, not second-hand from me. I asked him if he would be willing to send our son, Scott, an e-mail telling him about his father, since Scott was a baby when Paul died.
He went one better. He got Scott’s phone number and called him when he was in Utah for a visit and met with my son in person to tell him about his father. I was grateful for a look-alike suitcase that gave me a chance to thank him in person for taking the time to make that personal visit to Scott.
We soon realized that we were headed to the same car rental counter and continued our visit through the airport, onto the shuttle bus and waiting in line for our cars. He told me it would not have been good for him to have had the wrong bag, as his was full of information for an upcoming stake conference. I told him that he would have ended up with the manuscript for my latest novel and that in the absence of his stake conference material, he would have had no choice but to quote from my novel, giving me some much-needed publicity. (Unfortunately, that opportunity was lost because I never got the chance to reswitch the bags.)
Eventually we each got our rental cars and headed in different directions. I contemplated the fact that it was lost luggage that facilitated our meeting in Germany, that our visit to the temple was actually a visit to the clothing and distribution center nearby for purchases to tide us over until our luggage caught up with us.
“Coincidences are small miracles in which God chooses to remain anonymous.”
Sure, certain events are random. Many suitcases look alike. The flight was from Salt Lake, so there were bound to be a few fellow members of the Church on board. There might not have been any grand and glorious purpose behind this second chance meeting, but I don’t ever want to miss giving God credit for something He helped with and just chalk it up to being a random encounter.
I remember another trip home when something heavy was weighing on my mind. The closer I got to home, the more I began thinking about all the tasks that awaited me as well. Then there at my feet was what seemed to me a message from the great beyond. It was a tag that must have come loose from someone’s small bag. It spoke to me, reminded me to keep going, brought to mind the words of a hymn. Very plainly the “keep trying” message was in front of me. Carry-on, carry-on, carry-on.
It isn’t just a message to me. There are lots of people I know right now who feel they are at the end of their rope, those who have lost jobs and are struggling to find work to support their family, those faced with the serious illness of a loved one, those having a crisis of faith who aren’t sure if the Lord is mindful of them.
.
. . There are times we imagine we would like to trade baggage with someone else because our own has become too hard to carry. When the handle jammed on my jam-packed bag and I had to carry it rather than roll it along, I would have rather had the working bag, no matter the content.
I won’t pretend to know all the reasons our trials come how and when they do, because it always seems rather glib to explain to someone else all the Sunday School answers for why they are going through hell on earth, but when my trials come in seemingly never-ending waves, sometimes I look at a pink piece of paper that appeared before my feet in an airport, which is now stuck to my wall as a reminder to keep going, to keep trying, to keep believing.