Don’t Give Up Too Soon

So, we’ve been at the lake vacationing for the last week, and it’s been such a wonderful time. But early in the trip, we had one little incident that sent both me and my husband straight into panic mode.

Most evenings, we’ve been taking sunset rides on the boat, and they’ve been absolutely beautiful. Monday night, after 9 p.m.(so very dark), we pulled up to the dock, and I jumped out to tie up the front of the boat. What I completely forgot was that my cellphone was in my pocket.

The moment I bent down to tie the rope… plop. Right into the dark lake. My stomach instantly dropped.

At first, I thought maybe we could still save it. I kicked off my shoes while my husband tried shining a flashlight into the water so I could climb in and look for it, but the water was way too dark to see anything. After a while, we both started accepting the fact that the phone was probably gone for good.

Now, we always keep our phones in water-resistant Otterboxes, but they definitely aren’t waterproof. By the time my husband walked back to the house, changed into swim trunks, and found a better flashlight, it had probably been at least 15 minutes or more.

Before heading back out to the dock, he looked at me and said, “You know the phone is trash now, right?” Honestly…I agreed. But he went anyway.

A few minutes later, his phone—sitting on the kitchen island—started ringing. The caller ID said… MY PHONE.

I answered in complete shock yelling, “NO WAY!” And on the other end, my husband was making gurgling noises pretending he was still underwater just to tease me.

We could not believe it. That phone had been sitting at the bottom of the lake all that time, and somehow it still worked perfectly.

As funny as the whole thing was afterward, I kept thinking about how quickly we had already decided it was hopeless. We had mentally written it off long before my husband ever made one last attempt to go after it.

And honestly? I think we do that in life sometimes, too. We assume something is too far gone. Too broken. Too lost. Too deep underwater.

A relationship. A dream. A prayer. A situation we’ve quietly stopped believing can change.

But sometimes the miracle happens after we’ve already decided there’s no point trying anymore.

This week reminded me that not every situation that looks hopeless actually is. Sometimes there’s still life there. Sometimes restoration is still possible. Sometimes God is still working beneath the surface—even when all we can see is darkness.

And sometimes, it’s worth making one more attempt before giving up completely.

“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27

May 1, 2026 Morning Brew

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