Spiritual Sunday: When Things Go Wrong

The day of pretending to be a preacher.

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It was about the third time this past week.

I lost the comments on my posts again. Whats more, this time, my entire blog had gone willy wonky and it needed a rebuild.

Lovely comments. Comments I wanted to keep and cherish, comments that I could have cross stitched and framed, had disappeared into the black hole of computer hell. The colors on my blog were wrong. The links didn't link anymore. The layout was layed out. What caused this latest disaster? I had trusted computer people. I had followed the prompts of my website to get rid of the "old blog." I was already using the "new blog" but the website insisted I get rid of the old one. So I clicked a button, and then suddenly,

Things went wrong.

Oh the blog posts were still there, but everything else was on a highway to hell. And the comments were gone. And when I went to Facebook where I had posted links, the links didn't link to anything but a page that announced "oops". And suddenly a simple job of creating a post required a renovation. it's like redoing the bathroom or the kitchen. You think you're doing something minor like tightening a pipe under the sink, and then you discover water damage and then you discover mold and then suddenly that simple plumbing problem now has gutted the entire room and men are wandering around in hazmat suits while you're living in a motel cooking over a hot plate. We often face things in life that have gone wrong, that send us back to the starting line, or even further back to the bleachers and we have to readjust and learn new things and redesign and rethink and come to terms with permanent loss, and we end up crying into a pillow, hugging a cat and watching Gilmore Girls while eating twinkies and wishing we lived in Stars Hollow and had Luke to fix things for us.

It helps to remember this...

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Most days that go wrong just feel like accidental chaos. But maybe they aren't. Maybe there was something that needed fixing and you just have to fix it, even if it means going back to the very beginning. And maybe when you're done fixing it, it will be better than before, although it may take awhile to realize it. My computer glitch is minor in comparison to the real things in my life. And likely something else will happen to my website that will require another fix. And I'll whine and complain and walk away and then do something about it and carry on because really it's not that big, it's just annoying. And even more likely, something will happen in my life that is big, and I'll have to start over and fix things and repair things and rethink things and hopefully it will be better. But whatever happens, I have the hope that the future is not limited to this life and this dimension and the hard part will not last forever and the Lord really does have a plan. I just wish He would let me in on it.