A Phone, An Error, For God's Glory

I have grown up hearing the phrase, "there is no happenstance in a christian's life." As I read my Bible, I can see God making this statement a reality. I believe this statement to be a truth in my daily life.

In preparation for my trip to Russia, I found it possible and even necessary to purchase a phone that would enable me to communicate with all of you here in the states at little cost. It has been a consuming event to familiarize myself with this little device that is a miniature computer, camera, and phone, all in one. I think the smaller the device gets, the more challenging it is to operate. This phone will allow me the opportunity to keep this blog and to share my journey with all of my friends and family who want to follow. Calls from Russia were going to cost $4.00 per minute and even texting, would be .50 to send and .05 to receive. As I share this story with you, please keep in mind these costs.

This past weekend, Dan and Jenny Savage devoted several hours to me, helping me set up my blog and then my phone to be able to upload pictures to this blog. In the process of doing all of this, my phone started telling me that there was an error and I could not get to my blog site at all. We kept trying different things and ways, but it would not cooperate. I was very discouraged and felt very bad that I had taken up so much of these dear people's time. Thank you for your patience Dan and Jenny.

After spending more time at the Savage home Sunday night, and after speaking with the representative from Verizon, I still could not fix the error message. As I was about to drift off to sleep Sunday night, I prayed to the Lord and dedicated my new phone to Him. I knew that He was very well aware that there was a problem. It was during a light sleep that I remembered the costs to use my phone. It would be .50 to text. Well, sending pictures to the blog site was through texting, and so I immediately thanked the Lord for the error message. If I were to send picture after picture to my blog, I would have been charged a fee. I know that the Lord allowed the error to take place to prevent me from being charged for pictures. Monday morning I uninstalled and unregistered all that we had done over the weekend, and sure enough, I was able to get to my blog and was able to see exactly how things were set up. I was trying to fix the problem with my phone, in the flesh. When I stepped aside and entrusted, yes, entrusted, this man made device to the Lord, for His service and His glory, He provided the answer in such a way that only He would indeed get the glory.

I love that the events in our daily lives tell a story. My prayer is that the stories will help strengthen the lives of others and that they will further the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

More to come as I prepare to leave for a far away land.