God Speaks!

A friend of mine posted in Facebook last week that he wonders what would happen if we all just said a prayer for the very first person in our line of sight. He asked if everyone reading his post would just stop right there and pray, whether they knew who they were praying for or not. It reminded me of a time that AL and I went for a little weekend excursion.

So most of you guys know that AL and I love to ride our Harley. Since neither one of us had any obligations one weekend (and this does NOT occur often), we decided to take a short two day trip to Orlando on the bike and just be-bop around town. Considering my career in the motor vehicle accident serious injury field, you can bet that there are certain highways that make me a little nervous. One of those being the road to Orlando, good ol'e I-4.

I am very confident in Al's ability to drive safe and keep us from harm but there is always that "other" driver. I usually have no problem whatsoever falling asleep on the back of the Harley only to awaken when my helmut "clunks" the back of Al's helmut. It is a certain sign to Al, that I have once again fallen asleep. It's really easy to do, with the hum of the wind in your ears and the rumble of the exhaust.

Well, I really didn't want to fall asleep on I-4 this Saturday morning. I also didn't want to distract Al with talking and carrying on a conversation, so I was trying to think of a way to keep myself entertained and not fall asleep when I had this wonderful idea! I decided to pray for every occupant of every car or truck that we passed or that passed us. I started this at about the Plant City exit. Each vehicle that we came across, I prayed individual prayers. There was the older couple in the blue Camry. I prayed for their health and that they are able to enjoy retirement and that they have a relationship with God and can lean on that when times get tough. I prayed for the teenager in the green Volkswagon Jetta. I prayed that he would have a relationship with our wonderful God and make the right choices in his life for his future. I prayed for a young family with an infant in a car seat, that they would bring up their child to know God and that their marriage would be blessed. I prayed for a business man on a cell phone in a black BMW (nice car!) who looked like he was working/driving/stressing on a Saturday. I prayed that he knew God and that above all things, God is in control and that he had time to stop and smell the roses with the important people in his life. I continued on in this manner until we reached Kissimee. I probably prayed for over 100 strangers!

The traffic started to pick up and I was losing my place. Cars were passing by... and there was the white van and then the red truck....and .... and wait, I want to pray for the Publix driver of the Semi..... and then there were five other cars that got away. I was getting all messed up so I decided that I was done. We were almost at our destination. Now let me just mention that the sky was an endless sea of clear blue. It was the most perfect riding weather we have had as far as I can remember. I could see the sky for miles. So here I am, sitting on the back of the bike, traveling through Kissimee, all done praying and thinking, "man, it sure would be nice to get some kind of sign that my prayers were acknowledged. I know we are not supposed to ask God to "prove" that he hears us but I really just wanted something little. I mean, I had just prayed for 45 minuted straight for a ton of strangers that I will never meet. I started to look for the little metal fish that Christians put on the back of their cars. I figured I would take this as my sign.................boy, did I have another thing coming!!

As I am looking for a little fish sign, I notice that there are 2 strange lines up in the sky. Not clouds but just lines, then I realized that an airplane was creating the lines. I watched a little bit longer, wondering what he was doing....who knows how many fish I was missing but I was very curious as to what this pilot was doing. He started his third line and it was clearly going to be a smile. Ok, this is too cool and I have been really quiet so as not to distract AL but GOD IS TALKING TO ME!! I was so excited, so I lean forward and tell Al to look at the smiley face drawn by the pilot and I tell him about the prayers and the sign and I am ready to flip off the back of the bike. Well, the pilot kept going and the next thing we saw was a "J" !!! I said to Al, "Oh my gosh, if that is gonna say Jesus, I am gonna have a heart attack!!"

Sure enough, he spelled out Jesus and then he completed his sentence, "Jesus loves u"....So now we have Al trying to watch the sky, and the traffic and his hysterical wife on the back of the Harley BEGGING him to pull over......WE HAVE TO GET THIS PICTURE!!!! ..... this was one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me...here I was looking for a small little "sign" and God decides to send me a message that could probably be read by the entire city of Orlando. It was so cool! We pulled off the interstate into a bank parking lot and shot a couple pictures. This one was the best.

By now, Al and I are pulled over into a parking lot and taking pictures and just exclaiming how wonderful God is. We were absolutely beside ourselves. People were walking down the sidewalk, cutting through the parking lot, looking at these two crazy bikers making a big deal about this wonderful sky, it was all so awesome! Well, we get back on the bike to continue to our destination and Mr. "Send- Peggy- A- Message- Pilot" is still going strong and of course we were really curious....................the next letter was a "P"............I was about to faint right then and there on International Boulevard..........I was sure he was about to spell PEGGY and that I was about to meet my maker.......... ...he continued on to spell Praise God.... wow was that close! It was awesome.

When God speaks he uses unsuspecting people to get his message across. That pilot will never know how exciting this was to us, and the 100 or so people that I prayed for will never know that they were thought of on a Saturday morning. We never really know what ripple in the ocean our actions cause. Maybe some of the pedestrians that day were "caused" to look up at the sky because of the big deal AL and I made in that parking lot. Who knows. But God loves me and he loves you too. He said so.