The Cessna 210 flew with my family tucked inside at ten thousand feet as the hum of the engine droned through the clouds.
I sat in the cockpit with my pilot husband and studied the earth dotted with green circles of crops.
The droning stopped, and we glided in silence. I turned to Paul.
“Is this bad?” I asked.
He nodded. “We need to make an emergency landing.”
To my relief, the engine sputtered back to life, but then it died again. I felt my blood drain from my face. I turned to the back seat, where our eight-year-old son sat, undisturbed as he read a book. “Pray, Jimmy. Pray!” I said.
“Okay,” he said, unconcerned.
The plane continued to sputter. I stared at the earth below and asked my husband, “Where are we going to land?
“We’re only fifty miles out of Waco, and they have a repair shop. I’m going to try to make it in.”
Paul expected us to glide with no engine power for fifty miles? I closed my eyes to beseech heaven for help.
That’s when I saw a vision of Jesus standing like a tower. His feet were on the earth and His hand was cupped around our little plane floating through the sky.
“You are in the palm of My hand,” Jesus whispered to my spirit. “You couldn’t be safer.”
You’d think this unexpected vision of Jesus would calm my heart. Yet fear gripped me tight. “It would really help me trust you, Lord, if the engine would stay on,” I whispered back.
To my dismay, the plane sputtered, paused, and glided mile after mile until we spied the Waco airport. Just as our wheels touched down, the engine froze and we rolled to a stop in the middle of the runway.
A voice from the tower crackled on the radio: “Cessna, you are in harm’s way. Exit the runway now.”
“I’d like to, but our engine died. We’ll need a tow,” Paul replied to the tower operator.
They had to close the runway while they hooked our plane to a motorized cart and tugged us to safety. That’s when one of our wheels popped off the plane and the metal wheelbase dug into the pavement.
Lord, what if that had happened when we were landing? We would have flipped end over end.
I felt the Lord’s smile. “I was with you. You have never been safer.”
I’ve often thought of these words: When God is with us, we couldn’t be safer.
The thing that surprised me most was a phone call I received the following day from a friend. “What’s been going on with you guys? The Lord had me praying nonstop for you yesterday morning. Tell me what happened!”
Isn’t it like God to have placed my little family on the wings of prayer?
Dear Lord, You are with me. Thank You that I am in the palm of Your hand.
Find prayers like this in Linda Evans Shepherd’s latest book, Prayers for Every Need from Baker Revell. Visit her at www.GotToPray.com
