Personal: Answering the Call

There are so many ironic and/or funny things I could say about a phone right now. I've spent the summer glued to mine, checking voicemails and email and making tons of calls and waiting for callbacks.

But when I see this picture, I think more about how ubiquitous public phones were even up to a few years ago. Now that we're firmly in the age of cellularization, I've noticed that the pay phone stalls are fewer and farther between.

In some not so old movies, the pay phone is what drives the plot to action: there's someone who waits in the shadows for someone else to get closer to the phone, and then they call (that's how I learned that you can call a pay phone). The tension builds: will the intended person pick up? Will someone else step in? What if they ignore it?

I think that there are lots of ringing phones surrounding us these days--I know, because I'm on the other end of just one of them--and it's hard to know which ones to answer, which calls are for us, which calls are for anyone and which calls are just for the protagonist of a particular story.

So I've been praying for wisdom, discernment, and peace for everyone who hears the calls that I've made. Maybe you know it's for you to support. Maybe you know it's for you to pray. In whatever shape it takes, I hope that you find the strength to answer the call in the way that's best.