"I Don't Trust People Whose Phone Screens Aren't Cracked"

I was using contactless payment with my phone at the post office.

My cracked and taped phone screen looked so dismal, that the post office worker was afraid the state of my phone was why the contactless payment wasn’t processing.

Thankfully, it processed.

Then he said, “I don’t trust people whose phone screens aren’t cracked.”

Trust.

We may find it easier to trust people that don’t look perfect, that don’t seem to “have it altogether."

The Divine Mercy image reads, “Jesus, I Trust in You.” We can trust God.

Tragically, the world isn’t so trustworthy.

The world tells us to pursue perfection and to gloss over whatever isn’t shiny.

I remember in middle school, circa 2005, my classmates and I receiving packets for school picture orders.

The options showed how touchups, for an extra fee, could edit our faces, removing features like braces and acne. Example pictures were shown.

(The implications of that severe message could take up an entire book.)

I remember an astute classmate asking something like, “Why would you want your pictures to show you didn’t have braces when you had braces?”

Isn’t that the point of school pictures—to remember things as they were?

It's important to remember things as they actually were.

There’s the story of the Devil appearing to St. Teresa of Avila disguised as Jesus and she recognized that it was not Jesus before her.

Because the fake Jesus had no wounds.

The wounds remind us that Jesus was actually crucified, because He actually loves us that much.

I’ve dropped my phone in the driveway, in parking lots, on random hard tile floors.

But we are not replaceable objects, we are irreplaceable souls.

Here’s to our merciful Lord, who instead of discarding us, picks us back up after we fall and crack ourselves.