The Lost Cell Phone

At this very hour, someone’s cell phone is being stolen. Cell phone thieves roam the earth; when one loses his cell phone, he loses it for eternity.

These thieves are so adept at it a victim usually can’t tell how it happened.

Aie, my sister, was one such victim—at a time of great loss, in a funeral parlor in our hometown. She was taking charge of my late cousin Letty’s hurried wake. It was a death so unexpected members of the family in Manila were still being informed. Thanks to her cell phone, Aie was wired to the world.

After a few initial calls and a few minutes of pause for composure, she reached for her cell phone again. It was gone!

There were very few people in that place in the wee hours of the morning—just an ambulant peanut vendor, from whom she bought a handful, an embalmer and his assistant.

Aie went on a prayer marathon while she communicated with us via the next best, but infinitely slower, routes—email and landline. It was a most unfortunate time to lose something so essential; just when help was most needed.

We prayed with her, and at the next possible hour, we left Manila to attend the wake.

While having dinner in our ancestral home, two boys and the embalmer’s assistant knocked on our door. They came to return Aie’s cell phone!

Their story was incomprehensible and incoherent. Their aunt, the peanut vendor, initially took it, they said. Then they happened to find it. The embalmer was likewise claiming he had been texting the number, pleading for the return of the sim pack, etc.

Aie was so happy she gave each of the boys reward money and a thousand “thank you.” We all shared her joy and played sleuth, analyzing why anyone would return a cellphone, and how it could have happened—from the time it was stolen to the time it was returned. It was a lusty discussion between my siblings and me.

“You inadvertently left it and the peanut vendor took it and . . .”

“The boys might have snatched it while you were not looking, then . . .”

“Their conscience bothered them so . . .”

“They were intimidated by the text messages . . .”

My youngest son JR who was quietly listening to our chatters said in a small, still voice, “It was a simple case of answered prayers.”

We were silenced—by a young man one tenth of our aggregate ages.

Even as believers of grace, we often like to trace the logic and science behind human behavior. We forget, I forget, that as we pray, the answer comes not in the way we expect it to come. The God of grace is the God of surprises.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9