Many of us have been there, I'm sure. That moment when you look down at your phone screen, a screen, mind you, that should be pristine, only to see this.
It's a pretty sad sight, to say the least. I've only had this phone since January of this year, and it has already served me so well. I've used it to take notes in class, to navigate to so very many places, to look up recipes, and to read blogs and books. The phone is a Moto X, and while I don't use it very often for phone calls or texts, I do use it for pretty much everything else under the sun. Which is why I was so disappointed when one day I pulled it out of my pocket to see the corner had somehow been broken. I had not dropped it. I hadn't done anything unusually strenuous. I really have no idea what happened. And yet it was broken.
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| I have no idea what happened here. |
When my wife's phone screen shattered, we paid for it to be fixed. It took us awhile to get around to doing so, since the price to replace the screen was daunting to say the least. I definitely didn't want to do that again. And so, with much trepidation, and doubt I called Motorola on the off chance that I was covered by some obscure part of the warranty I wasn't seeing. As I explained my situation to the customer service guy, I knew it was hopeless, and he only confirmed it with his words, "I'm afraid that isn't covered by the warranty." But then hope! "But....." There was a pause. "Listen, let us do you a favor. We're going to go ahead and send you a new phone, and you can send us back the broken one. No charge, or anything, so long as you send yours back."
There was much rejoicing!
The story could end there, I suppose. But since I'm a missionary, I think I'll get all parable-y on you.
I most certainly didn't deserve to get a new phone for free. While my last two phones have both been Motorola, that didn't mean I was one of their top customers, or anything. My new Moto X was a gift.
In some ways, this is like God giving us our salvation. Sometimes we look at our lives and really truly understand that we are broken. There isn't anything that we, ourselves, can do about that. All we can do is ask God for forgiveness. And really we don't deserve it. Instead, forgiveness only comes from Christ, and it is a gift freely given. All we need to do is ask for it, and we accept it. How cool is that?
