Much Better than Expected

This is absolutely the truth…

All of the details actually happened. They are fresh in my memory, the reason is, this account happened to me. It was not comfortable or pleasant and it lasted for more than two days. What happened seems impossible, but that is part of the entire account. My goal in sharing this with you is to provide you with encouragement and direction when something like what happened to me happens to you. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that trouble happens in this world. It happens with regularity, and trouble is not selective-everyone experiences it. This is my experience with trouble…and the unexpected.

And it really happened.

My wife and I had made plans to make a four-hour drive to visit our family in another state. There are 9 grandchildren in this family. Even though the drive sometimes seems long, the pay off-time with our grandchildren makes the trip seem shorter.

Therefore, we were packing up our car. Since sipping water on a long drive is a good practice, I had two water bottles to put in the car. One bottle would be for another grandson who was making the trip to spend time with his cousins with us. My snap decision changed the next two days of my life. It was a decision which made me miserable at times, and created an unpleasant chain of thoughts. In a moment my decision was to grab the two water bottles and my cell phone and bring them to the car. My phone was in my hand, not my pocket. This time my distaste for my phone slapping on my leg while in my pocket created a problem which not be soon forgotten.

Small indentations from gravel are visible on the outside.

I set the water bottles and my phone on the glass of the car sunroof. Then I got some other things and put them in our trunk. Next step was- put the two water bottles in the cup holders in the car. My cell phone remained on the glass of the sunroof. How I wish I had never done this!

We finished packing.

Grandson in the backseat, my wife in the front passenger’s seat, we drove off. The first part of the trip is in our neighborhood. Because people were walking on the street to a graduation party nearby, I drove about 5 mph. A right turn took us downhill to the stop sign, still at 5 mph. Turning left we were free to accelerate to 50 mph. I did. We drove just a little more than a mile before it fell off in the 50-mph breeze on the car roof.

We discovered my phone was missing after an hour of driving. Stopping for gas, my first response before getting out of the car was to reach for my cell phone. Did I tell you all of my credit cards, my driver’s license and other important identification were snug in card holders opposite my phone? Another of my dislikes is carrying a wallet and a cell phone both in my pockets. It seemed wise to buy a cell phone case which would hold all those cards and my phone. Sometimes I put it in my pocket. Most times I carry it. This was the first and last time my phone will be placed upon the glass of the car sunroof.

We searched every possible space where my phone could be in the car. Denial set in. No way would I leave my expensive phone and all of my identification on the roof of our car and then DRIVE off with it still on the roof. It must be in the car. It wasn’t. Hoping I had missed a place, I searched a day later. Of course it was not there at that time either.

After the C-store, we had a decision to make. Turn around, return to our house and retrace our steps to attempt to find the phone…or drive on another three hours as planned. Imagine how painful it was to decide to drive on to our destination, and leave searching for my phone until we returned from our family visit. We did not want our grandson to have to drive two extra hours. So, we drove farther away, and put the search for phone and all the personal information on hold. It was awful driving farther and farther away. When I realized that I should have a driver’s license in my possession to legally drive and did not, my wife took the wheel. Now, sitting in the passenger’s seat, my agony over my foolishness only grew. We called our neighbor across the street and asked if she would look for it. A bit later she texted us while we were still driving, “No, we did not find it.”

That night sleep left me in the middle of the night. My anxious mind turned the problem of my missing phone and all those cards over and over. How could I be so foolish? Why didn’t I leave my phone in my pocket before we attended the neighbor’s grad party ourselves? Was my phone now smashed to pieces of plastic and glass, my cards mashed and torn? Or, did someone see it and pick it up cards and all? Was that person even now on a spending spree? In the morning we were relieved to see no activity on my credit card. We then locked it. Now my mind began to go over the search plan for when we returned.

A part of the search plan was praying for God to forgive me for my foolishness. Then praying for God to show me where it was. After a few more hours, my pray simply became, “God, you know where the phone is. Would you protect it until I can search for it? It seemed likely that replacing the phone would be necessary. It fell off the car at 50 mph. It did not feel good to experience such uncertainty. Nor, did it feel good to consider what needed to happen if all of the cards in the phone case were never found: cancel two credit cards-get new ones. Schedule an appointment for a duplicate driver’s license. With the “virus” the Department of Motor Vehicles is open only by appointment. Even my fishing license was in the phone case. All would need replacement. I spent at least two hours on Monday morning gathering information about replacement.

But-Grandchildren are great. They can take your mind off of your troubles. They did.

Approximately 48 hours after losing my phone, we began the home-bound journey. My wife drove. I had no driver’s license in my possession. By now resignation had set in, with reality. I had made an appointment for a duplicate driver’s license, and found out that a new basic phone would cost me more than $400. Another fact kept recurring; the missing phone was not paid for.

We did not expect the phone to stay on the car roof long. But we began looking, while we drove, when we were two miles from home. The speed limit was, as you guessed-50 mph. With no traffic behind us we drove significantly more slowly. My phone and cards had now been missing for 54 hours.

As we drove up a small hill, my eyes picked up a small dark object a few feet into the center turn lane. It looked “familiar.” My excited words to my wife were, “please turn around, I think I saw it.” She did. There was my phone. All the cards were just as I’d left them. It was laying open, on the road. I quickly picked it up, no longer lost. I did not need an appointment to purchase a duplicate driver’s license…or any of the other cards contained in the case. My eyes quickly examined the case. There were indentations from gravel and a scuff at one end caused by the phone striking the road surface. My glass screen saver had a scratch and hairline crack. The phone screen was perfect. Once in the car, I tapped the home button. The phone came on! There was still 56% of the battery remaining.

The left end of the spine of the case has scuff marks from the contact made with the highway surface.

You can only imagine the relief we both felt.

Then the reality of what had happened became clear. My phone had laid open on a busy highway. It was 2-3 feet from the west bound lane just on the inside of the turning lane. It lay in a spot where almost no one would ever drive. Thousands of cars had passed it during the last 54 hours, semis and dump trucks, all with tires that would have instantly squashed the tiny six-inch rectangle that is my phone. Even more remarkable…no one stopped to pick it up. My eyes saw it immediately as we drove up the hill. For 54 hours it lay there, traffic rushing by at 50 miles per hour, thousands of eyes…not crushed, not picked up, all my cards safe-and the phone worked!

What do we call something like this? ...An absolute miracle.

Miracles come from God. Jesus did them while He lived on earth…the earth He had made at creation. Water became wine, a dead son, a close friend was raised to life, and 5000 were fed from three loaves and two fish. Jesus spoke the words, “Be still.” The wind and waves ceased and the disciples were terrified; not at the storm they just experienced-but at the One who had just ended a storm instantly.

Miracles come from God.

He is continuously in the miracle business.

How do we humans access God who daily works miracles? He has provided a way for us to tell Him our problems and our needs. We come to the throne of God through prayer. Here’s the way it works. We speak to God we tell Him our problems; He hears us. God hears us every time…repeat every time. There is something else to remember. God knows what we need-before we do. And, it may surprise you to discover that God sends His answers before we ask Him.

The oldest book of the Bible is the book of Job. Why is that important to our discussion of miracles? It is because Job knew God is a miraculous God. God did miracles in the time of Job…400 years before Moses. In Job, we read these words, “He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.” Job 9:10

God does miracles today. The dictionary definition of miracle is: a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

I did not expect one. I did ask God to protect my phone. He knew where it was for 54 hours when I did not. God could have allowed my phone to be crushed or taken…or lost in tall grass in the roadside ditch. And a final fact: no rain fell on my phone. It was never wet. Instead God chose to return it to me in almost the same condition. This was certainly a welcome event. There is no better way to describe the fact that my phone and cards were returned…it was a miracle.

Does God love us? Know He does…with or without miracles.

Just half a ruler wide…this device lay open like this on a busy highway for 54 hours. It looked like this when I picked it up.

My wife was excited with me, she used her phone for this photo…she wanted to share it with our family.