Have You Ever Chased A Train?

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Disneyland with my two grandsons and my oldest daughter. What a joy it is to watch the excitement and wonder in the eyes of my grandsons as they experience "the happiest place on earth." One example is when my four-year-old grandson turned to my husband while watching the fireworks and said, "Grandpa, this is one of my dreams and it is coming true!" Days like this are beautiful memories we will cherish forever! And sometimes after a high, God allows us to go to the valley for a while to build our faith.

The day after our beautiful Disney experience, we had a few valleys to say the least. But even in the valleys, our God can do a miracle. Sometimes we make plans and things don't turn out the way we want them to. But in the middle of chaos, we need to "keep our eyes on Jesus who is the Author and Perfecter of our faith." Here's what happened:

We had a plan to drop our oldest daughter and grandsons at the Amtrak station in Los Angeles to catch a train back to Flagstaff! My husband and I had reservations to go up the coast of California to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. So at promptly 5:15pm, as we were arriving at LAX, I called Amtrak to get specific directions. Well to my surprise, I was told that the "LAX" on the train ticket did not mean LAX the airport. I assumed they were the same and boy was I wrong! The LAX on my ticket meant Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. The train was leaving at Union Station at 6:15pm and was rarely late according to the woman on the phone. Our plans were changing quickly.

So with hope in our hearts, we began to make our way to Union Station in downtown LA. Well, guess what was happening at 5:15pm in Los Angeles. We were experiencing a major traffic jam. And we were 20 miles away in stop and go traffic. In heavy traffic it is said to take 4 minutes per mile. This puts us at 80 minutes when we have only 60 minutes! Everyone in the car was praying. I was praying out loud, "Lord, you are our only hope!" and He was! So we prayed and drove and when we were about 5 miles away at 6pm a car came from nowhere and hit us. It was just a fender bender, thank God, but it still required us to stop. Since no one was hurt, we exchanged information and continued our journey. We arrived at Union Station at 6:20pm and found out the train had left.

I talked to the lady at the counter and she informed me the next available train for three people was in 2 days. By then we would be in the hills of Santa Barbara and our daughter needed to work the next morning. That is when I got the idea to chase the train. I expressed this idea to the woman, and... if looks could talk! I calmly asked her to print out directions to the San Bernadino station. She let me know I had 60 miles to go. This would take at least 1 1/2 hours in traffic. The train was scheduled to leave at 7:59pm and it was 6:38pm. So, again, our only hope was Jesus.

He opened space before our eyes and lead us on paths we did not know existed (like a carpool lane right put of Grand Central with no traffic on it for 20 miles!). And we made the station right at 7:59pm. And to add to our miracle, the train that was never late, was late. When we got to the station we had a few minutes to get our things together and say good-bye! Our train chase ended in victory! And all the glory goes to Jesus! He was our only HOPE!! Amen.