(Welcome to my sister and guest blogger Gayle Virkler!)

Airline policies have changed a lot over the last few years, and getting a seating assignment seems to be more difficult than it used to be. When I booked my ticket for a trip to see my sister, the airline website said that “complimentary seating” was not available at the time.

Over the two weeks before my flight, I tried to get a seat to no avail. I was, however, more than able to upgrade to an extra legroom seat for the low price of $78 for a window seat. It wasn’t worth the additional cost.

When I fly, I love to look out the window at clouds and the land and roads far below, so my first choice in seating is a always a window. But when I checked in on-line, I was assigned seat 30E – a middle seat I definitely didn’t want. I found that a change could only be made at the gate.

Getting to the airport took much longer than planned, and my hopes for a change in seating assignment faded by the minute. I was in tears thinking that I not only wouldn’t have the chance to change my seat but perhaps I wouldn’t even make the flight at all.

I arrived at the gate in time to walk right onto the plane, settled into my middle seat and resigned myself to a nearly three-hour flight stuck between two strangers.

A few minutes later, a woman with a small child stopped at my row. She had the aisle seat and said that she and her husband had been separated, but it was her child’s first flight, and they’d like to sit together. Would I be willing to switch seats with him? He was up in the front in a window seat.

A window seat? I didn’t have to think twice! I made my way to seat 7A, which was more than just a window seat. It was a bulkhead window seat with more legroom than I knew what to do with — at no extra cost!

My eyes brimmed with tears as I realized that I’d just been taught a profound lesson. If I’d been able to change my seat like I’d planned, I might have gotten the window seat I wanted, but I certainly wouldn’t have gotten one with extra legroom.

In getting a window view, I also got a glimpse of how God is at work in every area of my life. When plans don’t work out the way I’d hoped, it might be because He has something better than I could ever hope for or even imagine!

                                                                                     by Gayle Virkler

For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.   Isaiah 55:9 (The Message)

I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out – plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.   Jeremiah 29:11 (The Message)

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory…   Ephesians 3:20, 21a (NKJV)