Ninevah

Do ever feel like God is telling you to do something, and you wonder why?

I could tell from the way she was breathing, that something was wrong. Her eyes were darting back and forth. Her hands clenched the plane ticket as if it was a source of anger. She bit her lip and sighed. I slid my hands into my pockets, not knowing what to say. Still, intently, I watched her. My eyes followed her every movement, my ears were unable to ignore her every breath. I tried to focus on my shoes, or on the ground, or anywhere else but where she was. But the silent voice kept telling me to talk to her. To listen.

Side by side we were standing in two separate lines. I was carrying my big black canvas suitcase, and she had an old beat up brown leather backpack. I bound for Chicago, but everything inside me was telling me not to go there. The person in front of me moved forward in the line. I took another step forward. Why did it feel like I was marching to my doom?

Then I heard it. The loud heartbeat sounds. My ears started hurting from the noise. I cringed and put my hand over one of them in pain. The beats seemed to get louder and louder. Where was it coming from? Was it my heart? I grabbed my wrist and checked it’s pulse. No, it wasn’t me. The line was getting shorter and shorter, and soon it would be my turn to give up the baggage. To an onlooker everything seemed normal. But internally I felt like I was being tossed in a sea of emotions. “ Don’t get on the plane. Talk to the woman. Talk to her. Listen.” The voice kept saying.

I held my breath, anticipating that something really intense was possibly about to happen. Like someone was about to get hurt, and I had to find a way to stop that from happening. But I shook my head and shrugged. I am only human. I am no superhero. I was imagining things.

“The flight for Dallas leaves in ten minutes.” It was announced on the airport speaker system. I heard a quick shuffle of feet right to my left. I turned to look. The woman next to me was holding her stomach and she looked nauseated. She looked like she might collapse at any moment. Finally I couldn’t ignore the instinct anymore. I could not disregard the heartbeats… Her breathing… Her deafening silence.

“Are you okay?” I asked her with concern. She had said nothing so far, but I was innately aware of her suffering. It gripped me. I was in a dangerous sea and this girl‘s situation was consuming me.

She stood there gasping for breath and closed her eyes. Tears formed. The mascara started dripping, leaving dark stains on her cheeks. She was screaming out for help, but she was not even using words. Perhaps I was the only one there that could hear her. Everyone else stood intently in line, facing forward, unnoticing. It was then that I realized I was in the middle of a spiritual battle. I was fighting for the life of someone that no one else could see.

“What-- you need help? Can I help you miss?” I asked her gently. She trembled and put her hand over her mouth in surprise, then quickly released it.

“I have to go to Dallas, …but I am scared.” The young woman wept. “ My daddy says that if I don’t go, he won’t speak to me again!”

Was I jumping to a huge conclusion? Suddenly I felt like I knew everything going on, and the knowledge pierced me. The way she held her stomach. Her darting eyes. Her father excommunicating her.

I breathed deep and I looked her right in the eye. “Please don’t go through with this… please! ”

Like enemy soldiers coming at me with knives, a thousand doubting thoughts were milling through my head… distracting me. I now knew that I was not just fighting for one life, I was fighting for two. Yet the weight of that responsibility was huge.


She started sobbing uncontrollably. There were now just two people in front of her in line. “You mean… you know?”

My mouth felt parched. My voice cracked in the intensity of this moment. Eyes penetrated. “Yes, I…think I do.”

She looked down. She looked at the time on her watch. She breathed a heavy, deep breath, and placed her hand on her stomach, gently stroking it. Then looking up at me, she loudly whispered; “I am not going to get on that plane.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, and started weeping. “Me neither.” I whispered.

I was holding a plane ticket to Chicago, but I had been meant to stay in Nineveh.