Thursday evening we had a birthday party to go to, & I tried to pretend I was fine, but I’m sure it was obvious that my mind was distracted. Isn’t it amazing how God can place something on your heart, that you think is intended for someone else, but you later realize it was for you the entire time? Last Sunday, our message was on John 6:16-24 & Mark 6:45-52 where Jesus saved the Disciples from a storm & brought them to safety on the shore. During the message I had someone in mind that I knew had been struggling & I thought this message may be comforting to them. Little did I know that I would be referring back to those verses later in the week. What perfect timing God has! I knew that I could not solve my hard drive crisis, nor could I.T.; I had to turn to something way more powerful than myself. I willingly invited God to navigate my ship to the shore.
Oh how God provides & placed the scriptures on my lips to pray! Romans 12:12 (“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer”) ran rapid on my heart. I prayed & prayed all evening, & I meditated on His Word all morning. I had no desire to talk with anyone but God.
On Friday morning I was at Best Buy when they opened, & they told me it would be $1600 to retrieve my data, if it was even possible. I purchased another external hard drive & returned to my office. When I got to the parking lot at the office, I saw my friend Beth, who just happened to be running late. I truly believe that God placed her there at that moment to distract me on those last few steps inside, & to remind me that this storm was not about me, it was about my dependence on the Lord to provide.
When I sat down at my desk, I had great expectations from God. If He raised a man from the dead, can’t He raise my hard drive from the dead? I truly believed that He was physically capable of doing this, & I asked Him if He would. God knew what was on my heart, so I specifically & boldly requested that my hard drive would be fixed when I plugged it into the computer, not the expensive $1600 route. I was asking for a technological miracle & I was joyful in hope.
I plugged the old hard drive in, & it worked long enough for me to copy everything onto the new hard drive and then died again. This time I had tears running down my face for a totally different reason from the day before. There was no explanation for the temporary life of my hard drive, for the exact about of time it needed to be backed-up, but divine intervention! Praise the Lord!!! (Yes, I now have everything backed-up...in 3 places) He does provide! Even at the meeting with the reviewers later on Friday, when I showed up completely empty handed (and extremely nervous), went perfectly. Thank you Lord Jesus for your faithfulness! Thank you for jumping into my boat & “immediately” taking me from my storm to the shore! God is the captain of my ship: when I was struggling, He was there!
I thanked Phil for his encouragement & support, & he jokingly replied, “I had you on suicide watch.” My response, “you’re a very smart husband.” Just kidding! But seriously, thank you Phil for being so supportive, & not laughing at me when I asked you to pray for my hard drive.
I don’t pray for sports games, but apparently I do pray for hard drives. It seems silly to call a hard drive death a crisis right? Maybe so, but at the moment, it was a HUGE storm for me; I’m so glad that no matter how big or how small a storm, God is faithful to listen, to be present, & to provide comfort. How come it so often requires a crisis for us to return to the Lord? If you have asked yourself this question, I encourage you to invest a few minutes in this video (click on the picture below). The Lord is present with you & wants to be the Captain of your pink kayak.
