So Long, 319-461-4346

This afternoon I'm canceling my cell phone service. This might be the hardest thing I've given up so far.  (Obviously - relationships excluded.)

Harder than my car.
Harder than my cast iron skillet.
Harder even than my favorite jeans, y'all...

It's not that I'm all that much of a techie, or anything. I didn't even have a smart phone. Maybe that's it, though - I've had the same phone for over 5 years. I've had this number even longer - probably almost a dozen years. I was kind of attached.

This was the phone that got me through the long illness and death of my mother-in-law. It's what I used to call my family and tell them about the birth of our youngest child. I spent five years lobbying using this phone. Making endless phone calls on it. Giving out this number. It represented comfort. Connection. Versatility. Safety.

I've spoken with the current governor of Iowa on this phone, folks. For real.

<sigh>

It's the phone I spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours (you get the point) talking to my loved ones on. I'm pretty sure my children have, at various times, thought that it was semi-permanently attached to my head.

I've laughed with this phone. Cried with this phone. Fought using this phone. It's been there with me for some of my very best and very hardest moments.

Well, so long 319-461-4346. It's been good knowing you. And, though it's hard to give it (and all that it represents) up, I know that I know that I know that I can trust God and how He's leading me. He will never leave me, nor forsake me, and He'll be with me always - even to the end of the age. I guess if He doesn't need a cell phone in order to lead me, I don't really need a cell phone to do His work, either.

(And, for what it's worth - we still have Facebook [Andrea Lemke Farrier], email [farriersoffaith@yahoo.com], Skype [andrealemkefarrier], Magic Jack, etc, etc, etc, through which we can communicate. Guess I don't really have anything to feel sad about after all, do I!?) :)