It seems like Chandler and I spent the better part of this long Thanksgiving weekend — at least Sunday bleeding into yesterday — switching cell phone carriers. We got what we wanted but not without a few headaches in the process. I do not have a technological bone in my body. Just teach me the steps to work it; don’t expect me to know how it works. Poor Chandler, at numerous junctures, grew frustrated with me because I kept asking them to explain something and when I couldn’t understand their explanation, I asked them to explain it again. I’m sure I contributed to everyone’s headache.

But one of the representatives that helped us was extremely patient with me, and when, on Sunday, I was starting to realize we would not be done by the time I had to do church on Facebook live, she pulled a table over into a corner and set me up to do church from there on my phone (which was still working at that point). That’s when I began to suspect she was a Christian, and sure enough, when I asked her the next day, I found out she was. That’s also when I found out she was a single mom with two boys and a mother who sounded like she was golden — helping her without getting in her way. She was a very strong individual with steely blue eyes that told you there would be no nonsense and that she could be trusted.

We left on Sunday night worse off than we were when we came in, with three lines down and only one set up. What was supposed to save me money was starting to look like it was going to cost me. I was obviously coming back the next day; and by the time I came back the next day, my trusted rep was admitting that she had made a mistake and misled me about something that she didn’t catch (she was relatively new at this job) and that if the company wouldn’t cover for her mistake, she had brought some of her own money to make it right. (How many times have you heard of that happening?) When I insisted she not do that, she overruled me and slipped the cash into my wallet. “My mom and I discussed it,” she said, “and I realized it was the right thing to do.” She was merely following through with one of Marti’s favorite mantras: Do the right thing for the right reason. She was making it right and this was the cost for making a mistake that she would never make again because of what she had learned. A truly admirable trait.

Doing the right thing for the right reason is a value worth holding to. It’s not going to get you into heaven (nothing but faith in Christ can do that), but it will get you ahead in life as someone who can be trusted, and in this current age of fake just about anything, that’s worth a great deal.

So now, three out of four phones are up and working, and this does look like it’s going to save us some money, although it will be a couple months before all the Black Friday deals and rebates shake down, so I will know then. But for now, I’m just glad I met an honest, trustworthy person who loves Jesus, and I don’t expect this will be the last we see of her.