Dear St. Anthony...

On SPIRITUS, we encounter MANY moments of grace, which is so awesome and so apparent by my other teammates' posts, but this past week, I experienced a moment of grace through the intercession of a particular saint:

Saint Anthony!

We had our team vacation down at the Wisconsin Dells early this week and as we were leaving, of course we all made sure everyone had everything. Now, this whole time, I tried not using my cell phone. I put it in my purse and there it stayed for 48 hours, roughly.

I did take it out once or twice to make sure I didn't have any missed phone calls. But, I wanted to practice detachment and just enjoy being in the presence of my teammates. After we checked out of our room, we loaded everything back into Jimmy (our big, white van) and spent a couple more hours at the waterpark.

I brought a bag with me that had some essentials items including my purse that had my phone in it.  I spent the afternoon relaxing by the wave pool. I had my ipod and I thought I checked my phone during this time.

Well, we were about 45 minutes in Jimmy driving back to our headquarters and I go to check my phone. So I open my purse and my big, red brick of a phone is not in there. So I started digging through all my stuff. Michael was sitting next to me and suggested I pray to St. Anthony (who has helped me with lost items before in the past!) so naturally, I did.

I continue to look and I could not find my phone. I was determined I left it in the hotel room or back at the waterpark so I called the facility and spoke to the person in charge of lost and found. They said nothing was turned in and took down my information. At this point, I was frustrated, but if I lost the phone maybe I should accept it and practice detachment. After all, our parents didn't grow up with cell phones, how hard could it be?

So I offerred it up to the Lord. I told him that if I couldn't find my cell phone and if it was completely lost, I wouldn't go looking for a new one (also, I can't afford a new phone). This was after praying to St. Anthony.

We keep driving and whatnot and I decided to pick up the stuff around my area and lo and behold! The big, red brick is literally sitting right next to my leg!! I screamed a little bit and then proceeded to tell everyone how much of an idiot I was seeing as how my phone was sitting next to me this whole time!! Michael then chimed in and said, "No! It was St. Anthony!!!"

So I am not cell phone-less. St. Anthony is amazing and detachment is NEVER a bad thing, especially when it comes to technology. Oh, and I've appreciated the moment of grace God granted to me in that moment!