“Sometimes things are not lost, they are just waiting around to be found.” Unknown
Cellphones are our modern-day lifelines and we use them for virtually everything. The versatility of cellphones is unprecedented. They do everything for us. We no longer have to memorize telephone numbers, we just store them. We use them to talk and text, to play our games, to post to our social media pages, to do our banking and pay bills, and to capture special moments with just one click of the camera. We use our cellphones for any and everything but mostly to stay connected to others and the world. We are so dependent on our cellphones that if we accidentally leave them at home, we quickly turn the car around to retrieve them. But when we lose them or they are stolen, it’s a horrible experience. We feel LOST WITHOUT IT. The thought of some stranger roaming through our pictures, text messages, and e-mails seems like a personal violation, and it’s nerve-wracking. Having recently lost my cellphone, I’ll admit, I felt LOST WITHOUT IT!!! So for this week’s blog, let’s talk SHIP about why we feel LOST WITHOUT IT……our cellphones that is!!!
Are we addicted to our cellphones? I think we are. We keep them near us at all times and rely on them for everything …now. I remember a time not so long ago while waiting for an appointment, we’d read a book or the newspaper, now our cellphones occupy our time. When gathering with friends to socialize, we’d laugh, talk, and enjoy each other’s company, now everyone is pre-occupied scanning their cellphones. We’ve all seen that couple out for dinner who instead of talking are individually entertained by their cellphones. Cellphones can be and are addictive. There are numerous studies that inform us that smartphone addiction is a real thing. It’s called Nomophobia-the fear of being without your phone. However, it’s not the phone itself that creates the compulsion but the games, apps, and the online worlds that we choose to connect them to. We spend more time using our cellphones -being on social media and playing games -than we do interacting with real people. Yet, even though cellphones have contributed to the void in our human interactions, we need them and if we lose them, we feel LOST WITHOUT IT.
I experienced that LOST WITHOUT IT feeling last week. Since the pandemic, I haven’t had the need to carry a big purse around. Instead, I put my credit cards and my driver’s license in my cellphone case and just grab that when I go out and last Sunday was no different. I grabbed my cellphone and ventured out to run some errands. My last errand was a stop at 7-11 before heading home. When I got home, I discovered that I didn’t have my cellphone. I searched my car. No cellphone. I immediately went back to the store. It wasn’t on the counter and when I inquired, the clerks indicated that they hadn’t found it and no one had turned one in. I called my number and it went straight to voice mail. Then I knew, I had officially lost my cellphone and someone had picked it up. That’s when that LOST WITHOUT IT feeling kicked in. My thoughts immediately went to what I had lost – all of the pictures of my family from my dad’s services, my bank and credit cards, and my driver’s license. Losing my cellphone meant that I wouldn’t be able to play my nightly Bid Whist game or beat Sheila in our nightly game of Word With Friends. Mentally, I began to pray and accept that it is what it is…..I had no cellphone. I had to let it go and I did. I canceled my credit cards, finished my blog, and went to bed- phoneless.
The next morning I was awakened by the house telephone. It was a clerk at 7-11 calling to inform me that they had my cellphone. When I went to pick it up, my license and all my credit cards were still there. The clerk told me that a guy had dropped it off that morning. She told me he said he was in the store yesterday and saw my phone on the counter and since no one was around, he took it. He said he regretted his decision and that his conscience bothered him all night and that he knew he had to return it. He told her that he has had a string of bad luck lately and keeping the phone would only attract more bad things. So after a restless night, the first thing in the morning he dropped the cellphone off at 7-11. I was grateful to be reunited with my cellphone but ironically after I prayed, I released my connection to that phone. I let go of the LOST WITHOUT IT feeling because I wasn’t LOST WITHOUT IT. Losing my cellphone wasn’t the end of the world. It was nothing more than a major inconvenience that could and would be replaced. Through this situation, I discovered that nothing tangible could evoke the LOST WITHOUT IT feelings within me. The truth is that the only way that I could ever experience that LOST WITHOUT IT feeling is if I chose to live a life without GOD in it and that is certainly NOT an option. It is for this reason that I could never be LOST WITHOUT IT because in HIM what is LOST WILL BE FOUND!!!
SHIP TALK: Have you ever lost something and it was returned?
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