Let me just say that I have a love/hate relationship with technology, with most of it being hate, if truth be told.  Today was no exception.  I almost cried in the Verizon store, but willed myself to wait until I was safely alone in my car.  Its the things we don’t anticipate that blind side us when least expected.  I went in to the store for a multitude of miniscule problems with my service and left with a loss.  A loss I had miraculously been spared only a few weeks prior.  A loss I didn’t see coming.

Silly, the things we hang onto.  Or is it?  I would say I’m a saver. (That’s the politically correct term for hoarder, isn’t it?)  Emails, voice mails,  letters, notes, cards with kind words in them from friends and family,  these are things I treasure and hang onto.  (I wrote in an earlier post, “Walking Wounded”, about the profound power of the word, both written and spoken.  Perhaps this explains my attachment to these things.)  So it should come as no surprise, dear reader, that I had several saved voice mails on my trusty flip phone.  These treasured voice mails were from my children in years past, saying such funny or sweet things that I had never been able to erase them.  Every time the prompt would come around to delete or resave, I would always press resave, thus preserving them for another twenty some odd days.  And this had gone on for years now.

I think its wise to hang onto what’s good and encouraging to get us through the tough, rocky times.  It’s during those times that we need to remember what was good and its that remembering which gives us hope and gets us through.  With my children grown and living in other states,  such were these voice mails to me, reminders of something precious to me.  They had survived several different phones and as recently as two weeks ago,  the loss of the phone in Lake Michigan.  In that instance, as you may recall from my previous post, my contact list had been lost but the saved voice mails had survived intact.   They were all there.  I considered this nothing less than a miracle.  There was something so comforting about the continuity of being able to access them despite the loss of my phone and the fact that this was a totally new, different phone.  At that moment, let me tell you, boy did I love technology even though I didn’t understand how it worked.  I didn’t care,  I had my saved voice mails, that’s all I needed to know.

Then came today.  Apparently, Verizon decided to change something about the voice mail systems on phones that were not smart phones or whatever.  This would include my flip phone.  The unsuspecting customer, such as myself, had no choice in this matter.  There was no opt out or do you want this new system?  It was automatically done for/to you  and on my phone the prompt was to set up a new voice mail, totally starting over.  The old was already gone and there was nothing I could do or could have done.  Something has been taken from me without my consent.  How keenly I feel the loss surprises me.  It is part of my history they have taken.

Now my head is telling me this is no big deal.  But my heart refuses to agree.  They are battling it out even as I write these words.  And these are the words running through my head now, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”   Matt. 6:19-21

That’s the bottom line,  that’s the real truth.  Any treasure I have here is subject to loss,  whether from theft or decay or from technology/big business that I don’t understand and don’t have any control over.  Loss is inevitable.  My real treasure, my eternal treasure, however is secure from loss of any kind.  It is being kept secure for me, safe from theft and decay, I will not suffer loss of heavenly treasures as I do earthly ones.  “For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”  Romans 4:18

And so I have both comfort and hope in these truths.  My mother’s heart will continue to feel the loss and my consumer’s  indignation at something taken from me without my consent may persist.  But neither are ultimately any match for the powerful truth of God’s Word reminding me where my priorities, my treasures and my heart belong. They belong with Him and there they are forever kept secure.  There I will no longer suffer loss.

sincerely,                                           Grace Day