Testimony Tuesday: Restored

I had been reading about praying and BELIEVING that God is going to answer that prayer.  Having the faith to know that He WILL answer it.  Matthew 21:22 says, "You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it." (NLT version) 

Have you ever been praying for something for a long time and then when God answers your prayer you are surprised?  That happens to me sometimes and then I laugh at myself because I had been praying for it the whole time.  Or a lot of the time when I pray I give God an out.  Instead of just praying a "big" prayer and leaving it at that...I squeeze in a "unless that doesn't work for you"-type-of-clause. 

Well as I was reading about praying and believing and pondering all of the ways I don't do that (right before Thanksgiving), I lost my IPhone.  My.  Beloved.  Iphone.  I prayed (yes, I prayed about a phone.  Yes, furthermore, Testimony Tuesday is about a phone.  Hang with me.  I have a point that is not about a phone.)  I prayed that God would somehow get my phone back to me.  We couldn't buy a new one--Christmas was the next month and I would have been guilt-ridden if we would have used our Christmas money to buy a phone that I had lost.  When I prayed I said, "God this is a prayer that I am sending to you that I am BELIEVING you are going to answer." 

Now in my mind I had already figured out ways that he could answer my prayers.  I thought I would either (A) find it or (B) someone would call and say they found it.  I even went so far as to sending my sweet little phone text messages saying things like, "If you find this phone and return it to the owner you will be helping God in answering my prayer!" 

That is not how he chose to answer it.  As God does, he provided a few phones for me to use in the meantime.  I used my Mother-in-Law's old Razor phone for a couple of days.  Then my mom gave me her old IPhone 3.  Which was nice but the software hadn't ever been updated so I couldn't download any apps or really do anything other than make calls and text.  I did appreciate having a phone, though! 

Matt's brother said he had an old 3GS (which is the phone I had before I lost it) that I could have and he would bring it at Christmas.  Also, Matt mentioned that he found an old Otter Box that someone had left in their car.  So Bert (Matt's brother) brought his phone at Christmas but Matt hung on to it until he could put the Otter Box on it (since during the 3 weeks I had my mom's IPhone I managed to drop it and crack the screen.  This, incidentally, led me to a crying meltdown in the middle of Charming Charlies over my irresponsibility.  I apologize to any witnesses.)  When we got home Matt did some kind of magic because he hooked it up to the computer and managed to retrieve all of my contact information AND previous apps.  I never even saw it until he walked in the room with this...

You guys...This is EXACTLY like my old phone. Exactly!  It is the EXACT same Otter Box. It has ALL of the information (contacts, apps, notes, everything) that my lost phone had.  It is the EXACT same type of phone.  Except one thing.  It has more storage so it is actually a little better!  Isn't that how God does things??  Not only does he answer prayers...but he does more than we ask!  Now God didn't answer my prayer in the way I thought He would or in the timing I thought He would...but He was faithful to answer my prayer!!