Worship at the Altar of the Cell Phone

On Wednesday evening, I left a voicemail for my friend Casey. We were planning to meet after church that night, but she had said earlier she didn't know if she could make it. So I left the voicemail to see if it turned out she would make it. (I'm going somewhere with this...stay with me.)

So, I hang up the phone and it was like one of those times in the movies where everything goes in slow motion as I lost my grip on my phone and it went flying up in the air. I tried to catch it. Really, I did. But the phone committed suicide by diving to the concrete ground below.

I have dropped my phone several times. Just a few days before this, I had dropped it and when I picked it up, I could hear something rattling inside. I thought that couldn't be good, but the phone worked so whatever. I only needed it to last another 3 weeks until I was due for an upgrade. 3 weeks.

This time I was not so lucky. The phone hit the concrete and shattered into several pieces. My friend Linda is one of those really smart (and really determined) people and she gave me false hope when she put the pieces back together so it looked fine again. But alas, when we turned on the phone, the keys lit but the screen was totally dead. :(

What survived the fall: the ability to dial and the ability for the person on the other end to hear me.

What did not survive the fall: the ability to hear the other person, the ability to see what I'm dialing (who I'm calling) and the ability for me to screen calls since the face was not working. Boo.

So the conversation I could potentially have would go something like this:
Me: (after dialing for a moment) HELLO? WHO IS THIS?
Other person: silence
Me: Did I call my grandma? I was trying to call my grandma!
Other person: silence
Me: Okay, my phone isn't working! Sorry if I called the wrong number!
Other person: silence

I have no landline. I only have a cell. Thanks to this, I have no one's number memorized. I realized that without my phone, I was able to call a total of two people in the world (if I had a phone, which I didn't)--my grandma and my dad. With the advent of the cell phone, I hadn't memorized any numbers, including my best friends. I have a so-called address book...I think it was last updated in 1999.

I worship my cell phone. I didn't know it until I didn't have it. I couldn't call Casey to find out if she could still go out after church. I couldn't talk to Rick to set up weekend plans. I couldn't call Katie about Friday. Worse, no one could call me. Something could happen to Grandma and she had no way to contact me.

So, as I went to a prayer & fasting meeting at church (how appropriate), I realized another fast I could take sometime would be my cell phone. Contrary to what I thought, I actually survived about 23 hours without a cell phone. To God be the glory.