“An hour’s delay!” my friend George exclaims. Unfortunately the message on the departure lounge’s screen was clear. Statistics boast 97% on-time arrivals but on this occasion we were part of the other 3%! Luckily we had calculated plenty of time for reaching Manchester, our final destination.

A queue of people start looking for seats. The children are the noisiest and tension starts to rise in the waiting area.

To maximise my time I take out my laptop to sort my mail. From behind I hear a child cry… not so much cry but scream, breaking my concentration. Unfortunately I don’t have ear plugs. How annoying! The wailing begins to get on my nerves.

But then it occurs to me: could this be my chance to live the Word of Life and see the Will of God in every situation, event and person? I can try not to get annoyed, to be patient and to love.

This thought gave me great peace and strangely enough the child’s waling stopped bothering me.

All of a sudden I see the whole scenario in a new way: my eyes are opened to people’s concerns about how to get home, to the stress and tiredness that caused the child to cry in the first place. Maybe I can do something to help.

I have an idea: I can turn off my laptop, take a pen and paper from my case and go over to the crying child.

The little boy was all worked up in his father’s arms.

“Can I draw you a picture?” I say and the wailing stops suddenly. Two big dark eyes look at me in surprise.

“Look, I’ll draw you an animal. As soon as you guess what animal it is, tell me.”

My pen moves slowly across the paper.

“Elephant!” I hear a voice shout from behind. It’s his four year-old sister. “Phant” echoes the little boy.

“Exactly! Let’s try the next one”.

“A butterfly!”; “A train!”

Then all of a sudden the two of them run off to look out the window.

I exchange a few words with the Moroccan father and return to my seat. “Mission accomplished”.

“You should have seen the faces on the people when you went over to the family,” replies George, “It was as if they were asking themselves: what will happen next!”

D. R. (Denmark)