Hurricane Season

My life has been a tempest in a teapot lately. Last week I whined about my e-mail issues. Yesterday I thought I would probably be crying about my phone issues when, in an apparent act of God (i.e. neither caused nor stoppable by me), my cell phone suddenly locked me out. The screen said RESTRICTED and the only button I could push said UNDO, whereupon the screen said ENTER SECRET NUMBER. I had no secret number. I called my service provider. They told me what the default number for my phone was. That wasn’t the secret number. The Tech Support person offered to do a master re-set for me “but you’ll lose everything”. “What do you mean everything,” I asked, “all my numbers?” “Yes,” she said. “And your photos and text messages too.” I almost wept. Sensing my angst, she asked if I wanted to try calling the manufacturer, to see if they could help.

So I did. At the manufacturer, a very business-like person informed me that it was the service provider who had locked me out and they were the only ones who could let me in. I should call them.

So, I called them back and told a different Tech Support Person that I would bite the bullet and she should go ahead and do a master re-set. She regretfully told me that only the manufacturer could do that.

So, back to the manufacturer I go, only to hear a recorded message lodged within the press # for _______________ menu that says to contact your service provider to reset your phone.

I gave up. Shedding a few tears of frustration, I decided that eating would likely improve my outlook on life, which it did. After eating, I boldly dialed the 800 number one more time, praying that I would get a helpful person. When I got someone from Tech Support on the line, I informed him that this was my third call to them, my fifth call in reference to this matter and that I wanted to try to resolve it completely with this call. He assured me that we would do so, asked for the details of what had happened and then said he needed to do a little research, and to please be patient; he could hear me so if I thought of anything else I should speak up. I sat quietly and waited, soothed by his calm demeanor. When he spoke again he asked me to turn the phone off and back on again. I joked about this being the first thing a person should try before they call and that I’d be really embarrassed if it worked.

And it did. This man had listened to me. He heard what I said, researched the possibilities and solved my problem. He told me not to be embarrassed – it wouldn’t have worked if I had tried it without talking to him first.

I was overjoyed to have my trusty cell phone back. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that perhaps Someone Else had helped me with this little problem too. The same Someone who had answered my bedtime request for a decent night’s sleep in the midst of this tempestuous period of my life. It’s likely that neither of those things would have worked if I hadn’t talked to God first. Anything attempted after prayer goes far more smoothly . . . probably not because God is the great vending machine in the sky, but because, in the asking, I am putting myself in the correct place in the situation.

When I recognize that I cannot stop the rain, I am in a better place to raise an umbrella or lower a sail. School is starting; say a little prayer for smooth sailing.