Fruitful revelations

Sometimes change is not just a good thing, but it's a necessary thing.

On Saturday morning, I dropped my phone, and all I could see was a white screen. This happened once before, and the guy at the Apple store fixed it in less than four minutes. Call me naive, but I was hopeful for a repeat, so I set up an appointment with the Genius Bar.

Like I said, call me naive.

It was not such an easy fix this time. The "genius" told me I could pay $99 for a new screen, or I could pay $199 for the iPhone 4. Easy decision.

My genius then sent me to a sales specialist who could get me my new phone and transfer all of my numbers over to it. I figured this would be an easy process, and I could be out of there quickly. After all, I had a million things to do that day.

I think we all know what happens when I jump to conclusions like that. I assume we all know the saying about what assuming does. (Yes, that was intentional word choice.)

Well, apparently, the genius had quoted me an incorrect price, because I was technically not due for an upgrade until December. So my new sales buddy told me it would actually be $431.92. Um, excuse me? No. There was no way I was paying that. I mean, it's late August, which is practically December, anyway. They could make an exception. Sales pal said that he couldn't make that call; it was up to AT&T. Out to the kiosk we went.

At first the AT&T guy at the kiosk told me there was nothing he could do. Really? We bantered for a few minutes—this guy has a future in comedy if the cell phone gig doesn't work out for him—and I was finally able to convince him that it was in everyone's best interest for him to give me the $199 price. Sounds simple enough, right?

Wrong.

I don't know how many trips Sales BFF and I made back and forth from the Apple store to the Kiosk Comedian. There was quite a bit of manipulation that had to be done to the account to make it look like I wasn't cheating on the upgrade, and it was quite obvious that Sales BFF had never anything like this before. I'm not sure if KC had, but he seemed like he had cheated on a lot of things in life, so he was the one punching all of the keys. What I thought was going to be a quick trip to the mall (during tax-free weekend, a.k.a Hades, mind you) turned into an adventure of more than two hours.

Skipper: "You mean you didn't get an Otter?"

The manager of the Apple store had noticed I had been in there for quite some time, so he came over to check on the situation a few times. When everything was FINALLY sorted out and BFF was transferring my numbers from one phone to the other, the manager pointed to a wall of phone cases and told me to pick out any case I wanted, and he would take care of it.

Holla!

I have never owned anything Kate Spade, but I know she's a pretty popular designer (my sister is kind of a fashion diva), and there were some pretty snazzy phone cases made by her on this new wall of opportunities. I figured I would never be able to afford anything with Kate Spade's name on it outside of this moment, so I went with the fun polka dots.

I started thinking about it, and I realized that I'm not just offered a wall of cell phone covers every day—I'm given so much more. In both good times and bad, Jesus is there with me, pointing to a wall of mercy, grace and love and telling me that I can have it all, and He will take care of it. The best part? He doesn't limit us to two-year contracts with fine print and painful stipulations. Instead, he offers us a life promise that has unlimited upgrades and blessings along the way, with the ultimate upgrade at the end: eternal life with Him.

So, yes, I am glad that everything at Apple worked out and that I was able to use a phone again. But, more importantly, I know that the best communication isn't going to come from calls, texts and e-mails that I can access wherever I receive service; rather, it comes talking to God and staying quiet when He's speaking His truths to me.

And we certainly don't have to be in Wi-Fi zones to do that.