As part of those arrangements, I went to get him another cell phone because the last one, from Net10 had died. My son has been through more phones than me, so I’m not looking to spend any major money on him.

The first phone was also Net10, and he walked into the ocean with the phone in his swim trunks pocket. I bought him another one after fussing. That one ended up dying after being dropped one too many times and carelessness involving some moisture getting into it.

The last guy I was seeing decided to give him a used phone he had at home, so then I put my son on my MetroPCS plan. However, after a while, that phone stopped receiving calls, and I couldn’t reach him, which was no good.

I decided that I didn’t want the expense of putting him on the monthly plan, when his minutes should be limited due to him having the phone for emergencies; direct contact with me. So this time, I gave him my former Net10 phone, which was still good, and added 150 minutes to it.

Right as I had paid for the minutes and we attempted to use that phone, it failed to work. Now mind you, I had had that phone for more than two years, and had not used it in more than 1 year.

I contacted the company, which sent us another simm card for the phone. I called them back to activate the phone with the new simm card, but it still didn’t work after several different attempts.

I had to buy a new phone and then the company said they’d transfer the 150 minutes that I had purchased to the new phone. I went to 6 different stores, including two Walmarts, 2 Family Dollar stores, 1 Dollar General and finally to a Big Lots on the recommendation of the cashier at Dollar General.

As it turns out, the manager, who went searching the back of the store to see if they had any Net10 phones, brought out a phone that we didn’t notice said “refurbished.” It was $10 less than the regular cost of $30, so I was thrilled about that, because I was still supposed to get the 300 minutes included.

Once in the car, I realized it was a refurbished phone, and discovered that it was, in fact, a much higher quality phone than the one we typically bought from Net10. I didn’t care about it being refurbished, as long as it worked.

We got home and I activated it by phone, but nothing happened. I ended up calling the company a day later, and got this really nice Latin guy on the phone. He told me that I’d be upset with him because we had to put a bunch of codes into the phone. I was fine with it, so we started.

After the first code, I thought the phone indicated 300 for the minutes after it said “code accepted.” I told the tech that it indicated 300, and this must be the minutes, but he said no; and that we had to continue to put codes in, so we continued with each accepted code indicating an addition, (or so I thought) of 300 minutes.

After all the 12 digit codes; and he thought I was so patient and gracious; he said, “Ok, so your minutes are there, right?” And I said, “Ye-eees.” Then he said, “Ok, and is everything alright? You are happy with these minutes? Are these enough for you?” And I said, “Ya!” Then he said, “You don’t sound like you are happy. Is everything alright?” And I said, “Oh yes! I’m just fine! I‘m quite happy, don’t worry! ”

Why was I reacting like that? I’m looking at the screen, and I think I’m seeing things. I was supposed to get 300 minutes for the activation. My screen, however, was telling me that I had 2100 minutes. So naturally, I was a bit flabbergasted.

Now, you might not believe this, but then I did something really crazy and bold. I said to the tech, “Ok, remember the 150 minutes from the previous phone? It was supposed to be transferred to this phone?” He says, “Oh yeah. You have 157 minutes from that phone. Let me transfer those for you.” :-O! Now mind you, he can see the amount of minutes too!

The next thing I know, I have 2257 minutes on my son’s new phone, and the tech even extended the end date by another month so we have four months to either use it, or add minutes to keep all those minutes and roll them over. Of course you know I’ll just add a few minutes and roll them over.

So technically, this is how much God gave me in phone minutes:

300 min = $30.00
    X         7
__________________
2100 min = $210.00
+ 157 min=  $15.00
___________________
Total min = $225.00

But can you believe this? I paid $20 and got $225 worth of minutes! Thing is, I had just made up my mind prior to this call with the tech, that I wanted to test the Lord on one of his promises. So I had calculated, based on the new income from this job, how much I would be giving if I added just 1% to the 10% I was lining up this new income to give, along with the other income I have coming in at the beginning of the month. I told the Lord that I wanted to test Him and see how much of a difference just 1% more would make.

It seems that just having a sincere heart towards giving more is enough to motivate God to move on our behalf.

Since writing this, the new job ended, as they are all intermittent jobs that stop when the work is completed. However, my boss said they were keeping my badge separate from everyone else’s and my name is at the top of the list to call back for the next segment in about 1 month from now.

So it’s all good. I have favor with them, so whenever its time again, I’ll be working for them. Meanwhile, God is moving again in other areas, opening other doors for me and I’m just chillin’ and letting Him do His thing on my behalf.