Just so you know...I AM one of those people. I am one of the ones who seem unable to function without a cell phone. I have actually been well on my way to a destination only to turn around in order to go home and get my phone I left behind.

I know...it's crazy! It hasn't been that long since the only phones people had were in their homes connected to a cord that never let you get more than a couple of feet from the wall when using it. In fact, when I was very young, we even had a party line on our phone. For those who are unfamiliar with party lines, a party line was shared by 2 or 3 other families. Very inconvenient when you wanted to use the phone and another family was on it. And I'm pretty sure that sometimes they would listen in on private conversations. Don't ask me how I know this and remember I WAS very young.

And then party lines were gone. But still you were tied closely to the wall by the telephone cord. That is until they started making the cords longer, much longer. And soon, they invented the long, tight curly cords attached to the receiver allowing you to be all of ten feet or more from the phone. And if you worked it just right you would have the ten or so feet of wall cord and another 10 or so feet of curly cord. If you had a phone in the kitchen like I did, you could even cook while talking on the phone. I thought that was great! Of course there was a downside. Soon the cord would start getting out of shape or tangled and you had to dangle the receiver by the cord to allow it to unwind itself. But still...talking on the phone while cooking? Who would have thought it would get better than that?

And then, the mobile phone came along. Remember what they looked like in the beginning? The first one we got was about the size of a brick. In fact, I believe it is referred to as the brick. But now, there are these teeny, weenie, itsy, bitsy little phones that you can take anywhere. And as if that wasn't good enough they began to equip them with all sorts of capabilities. Some of them allow you to keep a calendar with an alarm to remind you of your scheduled appointments. They also come with little cameras so you can take pictures of stuff and send it to all your friends because we all know everyone else wants to see everything we see, right? And sure, phones were originally meant as a device to speak to another person, but now you can 'text' them with little misspelled notes. This is probably very good for the mind since you have to try to un-code and decipher what someone just sent to you.

You can use these little phones for just about everything. Even access to the internet is possible and allows you to get information about any topic and any time. My most recent phone has all these capabilities although I'm not totally sure how to use all of them yet.

... And this, my friends is what has rendered us completely useless and unable to function without one of these little gadgets close at hand.

Now I would like to tell you of a new unexpected use for these little phones. You see, I lost my precious, expensive little phone. We had taken a trip to Houston to visit a friend in the hospital and when I returned home, it didn't. We looked everywhere for it. I looked through every inch of all 3 cars just in case, checked the church buildings thoroughly just in case, and phoned our friend in Houston to see if they had seen it, just in case. But all attempts were unsuccessful. I was crushed! And then my husband decided to go to our carrier online to track its calls. It showed that the last phone call I had made on it was indeed the Friday we went to Houston. We had stopped on the way back to eat at one of my favorite restaurants and I used it to call home to check for messages. Then nothing more for 3 days...What? I didn't have it 3 days later. Why was it being used? And the weird thing was that it had only been used to call the restaurant where I lost it? Hmmm.

Suspicious, I phoned the restaurant and spoke to the manager. I explained the situation and fortunately my organized husband just happened to have the receipt from our dinner with the time stamp and the waiter's name on it. Surely, armed with this information, they should have my phone within minutes. Right? Wrong! After about two weeks of phone calls and conversations with three different mangers, I finally received the call I had been waiting for. They had my pretty pink little phone and I could come pick it up. YEA!

Now here's where the 'new' use of the phone came in. When we went back to pick it up, we decided to eat there again! YEA one more time! Had I not lost my phone there, it may have been 6 months or a year before returning to eat at this restaurant. Now I'm not recommending you leave your phone at great restaurants in order to have an excuse to return, you might not get your phone back like I did. However, it worked for me this time.

Even more remarkable than getting back my phone is that since its return, I have hardly used it. It seems being without it for a couple of weeks may have cured my cell phone addiction. At least I'm not quite as dependant on it at this particular time. However, since we are away from the house so much, I'm sure I will revert to many of my old phone ways. There's something to be said for convenience. But I need to rethink my dependence on these little conveniences. We should be sure we haven't become slaves to convenience. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:12 (NLT), "You may say, "I am allowed to do anything." But I reply, "Not everything is good for you." And even though "I am allowed to do anything," I must not become a slave to anything."

And in Philippians 4:11-13, Paul speaks of contentment. Although he had been both rich and poor he had learned to be content in all situations. And he tells us how in the verse 13. It says, 'For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.'

So for me this translates, I have been with phone and without phone and have learned I can be content in both situations. Yep, I'm thinking Paul knew the secret to contentment and he didn't even have a cell phone.