She was sitting between me and another man. A young woman, clearly distressed. Not composed sadness, but the kind people try to hide in public. Tears that spilled over despite her best efforts.

The atmosphere around us shifted. That subtle tension when something deeply human breaks into a very structured environment. Everyone becomes aware. No one quite knows what to do.

And there I was. Sitting.
Watching.
Wondering.

Should I say something?

I closed my eyes for a moment and prayed quietly. Lord, what are You doing here? Is there something You want me to say? Something You want me to do?

Nothing came to mind.

Honestly, what do you say? How does a middle-aged man turn to a young woman in tears on a plane without it feeling intrusive, awkward, even inappropriate? Every scenario I imagined felt clumsy. Forced. Wrong.

And yet I couldn’t shake the sense that something bigger might be happening. That maybe I was supposed to step into that moment.

I wanted to comfort her.
To reassure her.
But I didn’t.

I froze. Paralysed by uncertainty, self-consciousness, overthinking.

Then the man on her other side leaned in and spoke. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just gently, simply, and with surprising clarity:

“I hope you don’t mind me noticing, but those seem to be some very strong emotions you’re dealing with.”

No fixing. No probing. No assumptions. Just an observation and space.

She responded immediately. She opened up, shared what she was going through, and right there in that cramped row of seats, a real conversation began. The kind that cuts through small talk and gets straight to the heart. As deep as you can reasonably get at 30,000 feet.

I sat there quietly stunned.
Did I miss the moment?

That question sat with me for a while. But slowly something shifted. Because I began to realise that maybe I hadn’t missed anything at all.

God was at work in that moment. But not in the way I expected. He wasn’t prompting me to speak.

He was teaching me how to see.

That phrase has stayed with me. “I hope you don’t mind me noticing.” It carries humility and asks permission in the same breath. It honours the other person’s space while opening a door. It doesn’t fix anything or assume anything. It just makes someone feel seen.

And sometimes that’s the whole thing.

I learned it by watching someone else. God was working in that moment, just not through me. He was working on me. Shaping my awareness. Quietly correcting my assumption that I always need to be the one who acts.

Sometimes He moves through others. Sometimes He invites us to watch.

And sometimes the lesson is the whole point.

Next time I’ll be ready. Not with the right answers or perfect words. Just with a little more courage and a better way to begin.

Because that’s what I saw modelled at 30,000 feet. Not a sermon. Not a system. Not a perfectly crafted question. Just one person turning to another and saying, simply:

‘I hope you don’t mind me noticing!’