Times are bad, God is good

It was too early to cry. But as soon as I swiped my card to log in for work, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. By the time I reached my desk, there was no stopping me. I sobbed and cried like any brokenhearted gal. But can you blame me? We’ve been together for twenty months already—the longest I’ve stayed with somebody of his kind. Sure, he was acting a bit weird lately: not doing what I wanted him to do, conking out on me in the middle of a task. But I’ve grown to love him. I consider myself faithful and didn’t even think of replacing him on a whim. Not even if there were others out there more attractive, taunting me, tempting me to try them.

Now "he" is actually an it: my Nokia 6600 phone. And the last I saw it was yesterday.

Our parting happened on my way to work. When I was getting off the non-airconditioned bus, a man wearing a sports cap blocked me on my way down. Irritated, I asked him, “Bababa ka ba (Are you going down)?” Little did I know that his hand was already in the outside pocket of my backpack, getting my treasured cellphone. I’ll stop here with the storytelling. The memory of the violation still stings. (That word, violation, encapsulates what was done to me. I felt violated and it deserved a good cry.)

My tears yesterday were of anger and frustration. Ian, who was just a few steps away from my workstation, just stood by my side while I was sobbing on my desk. He had also once lost a cellphone and so understood how I felt. “It’s OK to grieve,” he advised. And so I did—for fifteen more minutes. My teammates (and other officemates) did a great job cheering me up. My boss, Ate Yna, ordered an extra Chicken inasal for me for lunch (I told her afterwards that it was the best chicken I’ve tasted ever). Marian graciously offered to wash my plates. Ruben gave me a Mr. Donut chocolate twist to sweeten my afternoon. The rest offered words of encouragement like, “You’ll get a better phone” or would sincerely check up on me, “Are you feeling better now?” They, my burden-sharers, made it easier for me to go through the rest of the day. In fact, by lunchtime I was already laughing and joking about my loss, thinking absurd thoughts such as “What if I offered to buy my cellphone from the snatcher? I could probably haggle for a discount.”

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Mine is a safe and sanitized world. The people I work with love God, pray before meals, and don’t cuss or swear. Outside work, I spend time with others who likewise love God, pray before meals, and don’t cuss or swear. Over time, maybe I’ve been falsely conditioned that the Fall of Man didn’t happen and that the Garden of Eden was still pristine and perfect. This one incident jars me back to reality that ours is a wicked world longing to be redeemed. Yes, there are cellphone snatchers out there whose hands are too calloused to feel their crime burn through their skin.

“Times are bad, God is good,” a line from Psalm 100:5 on my bedroom whiteboard reminds me daily. In the context of this truth I am praying—and yesterday, prayed more fervently—“Lord, even if bad things happen to me, please don’t let me sin against you. Don’t let the circumstances happening around me fool me into thinking that You are not good. That You are not loving. That You are not in control." I remember Job, the biblical character who had experienced exponentially greater losses yet did not sin. Tell me, what is losing a cellphone compared to losing your children, your livelihood, your health?

God is good—still is and always will be. All I have, material or otherwise, is His. God has already surprised me with extraordinary blessings before. He has answered more prayers than I can count. He has made me feel special with people in my life who are actually angels in disguise. The love of God is with me and no thief—a cellphone snatcher or even the Devil himself—can steal this from me. (Romans 8:5,38-39)