FROM THE PASTOR
November 19, 2017
What a week! Started right off Monday morning. Monday is my day that I do the bookkeeping for Connie’s business. I got up with her at 4:30 AM (yes, that’s morning time) since I needed to do some other things and booted my computer up. Now, let me tell you about my computer. Not by choice, but by necessity, my computer is my main tool. Before I retired I spent 10 hours a day, 5 and a half days a week on it between work, church and the business accounting. Now that I am retired I am pleased to say that those hours have reduced, but they still run 5 6-hour days most weeks. If I had to depend on a typewriter or a hand calculator (or a slide rule, which I can still use a little) I would be up a long creek without a paddle.
I worked on the computer for a while Monday and reached a point that I needed to research something on the web in explorer. After I found what I needed I started to close explorer down and everything froze up solid. Not the first time, no problem, wait a little bit and see if it works its way out, if not, control-alt-delete and shut the program down. But this time was different. NOTHING! No matter what I did there was no response. Finally, I did a hard power down. That is when you push the power switch and hold till the computer closes down. Not recommended, but sometimes its required. Success it shut down.
Waited a few minutes. Unplugged the power cord to drain the capacitors and after 60 seconds pushed start. Immediately it went to the initializing screen and once again, hung up. Had to hard power down again. This happened about 6 times. Computer is only 7 months old and still under warranty so I called Dell. Got ahold of a very nice and helpful, but heavily accented, young man from India. He hooked up his computer to my computer and found that my hard drive was shot. In fact, it was so bad there was no recovering any data. They would send me a new hard drive to install.
Understand, I have historical data on this computer that goes back 9 years from pictures to letters to sermons to 5 years of my wife’s business accounting. I have accounting software, bible software, office software and a litany of other “stuff” … Important stuff. Stuff that if I had not faithfully backed it up daily all of it would have disappeared in a heartbeat. That part of my life would have been as if I had erased it. Fortunately, though, I had backed it up and I only lost a couple days’ work.
Understand, for me to lose that computer without backup would have been like a plumber losing his pipe wrench or a welder losing his torch or a Christian losing his Bible… or stop attending church… or becoming immersed in the things of this world. Given that, I am so thankful that God gives us irrevocable (unlosable) tools, gifts and callings to serve Him. Paul wrote…
Romans 11:29 (NASB)
29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
It’s difficult for me to imagine a life without any of those. To be absent of that which God has specifically prepared for me. And think, if you are His, He has prepared the same for you too.
Oh, by the way, I have the new hard drive installed, data has been recovered and put on the new drive and I am writing this using it. I’m not sure why this happened. I sure didn’t have time for it. But along the way I spoke to a nice young man from India who is getting married in 15 days and we spoke about the importance of a good marriage. I spoke to a nice young woman from the Philippians and had opportunity to compare God’s amazing creation there and in Michigan. We both gave God credit for that. And I spoke a nice young (everyone’s young to me now) Hispanic fellow in Maine and had a chance to thank him for being such a help. I guess that God sometimes opens doors where we see no doors.
Thank You for your faithfulness!
Pastor Larry
