Fighting fear with faith

The phone rang, interrupting my afternoon nap. Yawning I went to the kitchen to answer it. “Hello, Hershberger’s residence,” I mumbled. No one responded. I cleared my throat, “Hello?”
I heard a quit click.
“Okay, good-bye,” I hung up. It was another anonymous silent phone call at 2:15 p.m. interrupting my afternoon siesta with my pre-schoolers.
That was the 70s – years before the introduction of the now popular caller ID and automatic re-dial to the last person who called you. Although I made several guesses, I really had no idea who was providing my afternoon wake up call. They did not breathe heavy, let alone say anything. I used the calls to get me started on my afternoon chores.
I did not realize how accustomed I had become to them until my mother stayed to watch my children one afternoon while I was out. On my return she said, “Someone called around two and hung up right after I picked up the phone.”
“Oh yeah, the 2 o’clock caller,” I shrugged. “Happens a lot. They never say anything.”
Then I started getting calls in the middle of the night when I had no interest in working, let alone being awakened by an annoying phone call.
The night calls bothered me. The phone company’s solutions bothered me more: Pay to change our phone number and leave it unlisted, have a device added to the phone to track the calls and pay for a line trace. My fear changed to anger. No anonymous jerk’s dumb game should cost me just to get them off my phone.
I didn’t like my options. Either way it felt like the jerk cost me: Sleeping time if I did nothing about the phone calls; cold cash if we worked to stop them.
As I stomped around the house, I remembered something about the “fight fear with faith,” by applying “in everything give thanks.”
I decided to answer the phone with praise and thanksgiving for whoever called for whatever reason.
The neighbors called, ignored my new greeting, told me what they were calling about and hung up.
In the middle of the dinner, the phone rang, I picked it up, “Praise the Lord.”
The telephone solicitor was caught off guard. She forgot her prepared speech and slowly asked, “did your church tell you to answer the phone that way?”
“No. I was getting silent hang up calls. This is my way of dealing with them.”
“Oh. Well, what I called about today was …”
She didn’t sell me on a thing.
By Saturday afternoon, I was over my awkwardness at answering the phone that way. When the phone rang, I picked up the receiver and belted out, “Praise the Lord.”
“How did you know it was me calling,” my mother asked.
I couldn’t tell her I didn’t know, “So how was your week, Mom?”
For whatever reason, after I implemented my new phone greeting, I never received another anonymous phone call. Even my afternoon wake up calls ceased. I reverted to a traditional phone greeting and enjoyed every minute of my afternoon nap.