A Broken Phone and An Epiphany

The Broken Phone

I couldn’t use my fingerprint scan to open my MPDX app last week. I thought that was odd, but I finally gave up.

The next day, I discovered the reason. Hidden inside its case, the back of my phone had swollen due to an enlarged battery! I could squeeze the front and back together to get the fingerprint scan to work, but I decided to shut the phone down instead.

A few days later, I went to my local T-Mobile outlet store with a new phone. I wanted to turn the old phone on and transfer data. Two associates behind the desk spoke together in Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish, so I barely listened. I did hear one of the men say, “Ka-boom.” I recognized that, of course!

I spent several days ANNOYED. How would I get Okta and Google Authenticator to work on the new phone for my email? (They don’t yet.) I would have to remember the apps I used, log in, and authenticate them. I had lost data, which was unfortunate, but my essential data was on the cloud. A month before, I had the option to back up my entire phone to the cloud and didn’t do it. Changing to a new phone would be so much easier if I had. This phone problem would take a lot of time, which I really didn’t have.

Last November, my private Gmail was compromised. I still haven’t finished dealing with that. A few weeks before the phone battery problem, our Internet was spotty. We called out a technician who replaced our old modem with a new one. Thankfully, that was the fix we needed.

Other tech things have been performing slower than I’m used to, or I have to redo what I’d already done.

In addition, I’ve been frustrated by lots of medical appointments (and the resulting medical paperwork). The extra medical appointments have gone on for years. I’ve been sad and disappointed that I can never seem to have time to do as much as I’d like to do for staff and for friends.

The Epiphany

God seemed to tap my shoulder yesterday morning with the thought: “If this is my new norm, can I accept it?”

I’ve written about God’s sovereignty, but I wasn’t accepting everything He allowed into my life. Gratefulness sounded much better than grumbling. Everyone else around me will be happier, too.

After dinner, I drove to a ubreakifix store to safely dispose of the battery and phone. The shop owner assured me it was safe to turn on the old phone. He tried transferring data, but couldn’t. Instead of leaving the phone with him, I was happy to keep my old phone for now. He told me how to handle it safely. I’ll be able to use the old phone to recreate what I need on the new one. I’ll take weeks if I need to, then I’ll return to the ubreakifix store for him to wipe the data and dispose of the phone at no cost.

As I look back at 2025, here are some things I’m thankful for:

• I’ve received a LOT of encouragement and thank yous from my readers. Your support has been a comfort to me. I wrote a prayer letter to our ministry partners about this. See the post on our blog.
• Also, at the Day of Prayer, a staff leader encouraged me that the medical reimbursement tracking spreadsheet I created for P&A is “an absolute game-changer.” He personally uses it and “trains others to use it in supporting our staff in medical crises.” Wow! While I was navigating a lot of appointments and trying to figure out P&A, the spreadsheet I created has been helping others for years. I didn’t know. I’ll post about this in the future as I update the spreadsheet. (That’s the plan, anyway.)
• I met lots of people and have a lot of ideas from Cru25.

Learn from Judy Douglass in this video short on looking for the good in the hard things in our lives.

The Blog Fodder

I often write about the things I’m dealing with or discovering. I call these “blog fodder.” The issues I deal with may be similar to yours. For instance, I wrote about my November experience of navigating a data breach.

Instead of complaining about all I have to learn and deal with, I can thank God for the ideas and experiences that lead to blog posts that can help you.

Stay tuned. You’ll see some upcoming posts about how to replace a broken phone.

NOTES:

• MPDX, Day of Prayer, P&A, Cru25, et cetera, are familiar to my Cru readers. I hope this post is an encouragement to other readers, too.
• The photo of inside a cell phone is by Francesco Liotti on Unsplash. I actually haven’t looked inside my old phone.