Come on! Pick up!

One day our youngest, who is eleven, called a phone number, then turned on the speaker phone to ask, "What does that mean?"

*beep*  *beep*  *beep*  *beep*  

Haha!  It was a busy signal!  I hadn't heard one of those in a long time now that cell phones are around.  Everyone seems to have one, giving us instant access at all times.

As many of my friends and family can attest, I am not a fan of answering the phone all the time.  Honestly, there are times the phone just interrupts life at the wrong moment.  I think my lack of urgency to answer it stems out from time in life when we were in full-time ministry.  Our phone rang like normal people until dad was a Pastor.  Then...it rang ALL THE TIME!  We could scarcely eat a meal without it ringing several times.  Because you never knew if it was an urgent matter (and that's part of what ministry involves) you answer it.  I can't imagine what it's like for Pastors in this day and age with cell phones.  It's got to be tougher than ever to get away and rest.

Growing up, the only other person I remember needing to be available at all times was the Doctor.  You'd be sitting in church when   *beep*  *beep*  *beep*  the pager hanging from his belt would go off, alerting everyone that there was some emergency he needed to head off to.  A Pastor and a Doctor have this in common - they are aids to those with brokenness.  One for the body. One for the soul.  And you never know when those needs will arise.

Then, there is the Great Physician.  The Great Shepherd.  We have instant access to Him at all times.  No busy signal.  No call-waiting.  No being put on hold.  And amazingly, He never sleeps, so we'll never miss being able to reach him.  This is something about God that is mind boggling to me.  Being an exhaustible human being, I can not fathom the fact that he in inexhaustible! 

Always present.  Always wise. Always powerful.  Always there.

(Ironically, just after writing this, we were trying to reach Daryl's mom and couldn't get her.  Realizing it had been more than 24 hours since any of us in the family had talked to her, we began to worry a bit.  If you know Marly, you know she is Jonny-on-the-spot with her phone, so it wasn't like her to NOT answer!  We used our open line to God this morning already as we prayed for her, hoping she was alright.  I had to laugh at the timing of this situation in light of this post!  Marilyn is fine...by the way.  She'd just turned her phone off.  Haha!)