Revelation in D31

On July 28th, 2009, at 9:55 A.M., I had a revelation.

Having taken one of the few empty seats in Gate D31 at the DFW airport, I commenced to brood and examine my surroundings:


Soldiers returning home from conflict, weary and worn, yet with an eager, hoping light in their eyes.

Hustling and bustling from all sides; honeyed voices booming over the intercom: “Last call for Andrew Lopez departing on American Airlines to Las Vegas. Last call for Andrew Lopez”.

My own heart, pumping rhythmically with my flashing thoughts.

The quiet and steady hum of noise pushing me deeper into my thoughts.


I had just returned to Gate D31 from the little McDonalds in the concession area. Not realizing that in business class, the term “snack” means “meal so large that a short little Chinese girl with no appetite cannot possibly finish it”, I bought a McSkillet.

[Of course, first choice would be a McChicken, but the lunch menu was not served until 10:30, and with my plane leaving at 10:40, I dared not chance to miss it. How was I to know they would announce my plane’s 20 minute delay immediately after I purchased the McSkillet? However, what was done was done, and I ended up giving it away to someone who needed it more than I, anyways.]

There I sat, insecurely fidgeting and scribbling away in my journal, doing my utmost to ignore the increasingly louder conversation amongst the Chinese family seated to my left.

It was a typical Chinese American family. The father was busily tapping away at his laptop, wearily finishing up the last-minute work before a well-deserved vacation; the mother was noisily clucking over her children like a fussing mother hen, switching between talking to her husband and begging her children to get off of each other; the two young and awkward sons, laden with action-figure emblazoned backpacks, were blissfully shoving each other further from their parents and closer to the busy walkways.

The topic switched to their lunch fare. Mother wanted some sort of grilled sandwich from a middle-class restaurant; children wanted “McDONALDS!”. Father didn’t care. “Alright, let’s just go get lunch.”

“But what if we miss the plane?!?” Stammered the children. “What if it leaves us here while we’re buying our food?”

I smiled to myself, jotting down in tired blue cursive, “What happens if the plane takes off while we’re gone”.

And then I paused.

As a child, my worst fear at an airport was to miss the plane. Even with the numerous flights we took every year as a family, I still nurtured the ever-present fear that I would be left while pursuing another diversion.

We are like the children. Salvation is like the plane. McDonalds represents all those unimportant, yet not always bad, pastimes that divert us from Jesus.

What if we miss our salvation by turning away for a while and focusing on something else? Lunch is good, yes, and goals are important, but are we missing the more important things?

How much am I focusing on things that could easily take me away from my plane to eternal life with The Father?

Beneath my hurried scrawl of amusement, this took the place of empty space:


“What if one misses their flight to eternal life with The Father? To miss the chance to be with Jesus for eternity is the ultimate sorrow. What diversion will take us away from Him, as lunch from the plane?”


Remember what the truly important things in life are.

Remember how easy it is to miss our plane.