I’ve learned in all my difficult circumstances to stop and ask God, “What do you want me to learn from this situation?” – something my Dad set a great example for. I admit that I haven’t spent as much time as I used to with God of late. I’ve been so caught up with travel and work that I’m way behind my Bible reading schedule too. So, is this Your way of telling me I need to focus on You and spend more time with You? Am I drowning You out in all my busy-ness and leaving no room for Your voice to be heard? Forgive me, Father. Speak Lord, Your servant is listening…
“I forgive you. You have to forgive yourself and let it go.”
I do.
So… I take my laptop for servicing, and they find that there is no external or internal damage, but it turns out the Hard Drive has crashed – that too, more likely because of my having installed Norton Anti-Virus than my dropping it! What a relief! Thank you, Jesus! So much for all that guilt and self-condemnation! Either way, lesson learned:
1. Don’t install Norton AV on a Mac and then drop it down a few days later.
2. Don’t be careless and drop your Mac anyways!
Retrieving data would cost a bomb, so I agree to having them reformat my Hard Drive. But then a couple of days after reformatting, it crashes again. So this time they have to actually replace my Hard Drive. Thankfully, my laptop is under warranty, so the next day I receive my laptop ship-shape, all updated and in working order, with a brand new HD only minus my files, and I haven’t had to pay even a single paisa!!! Whoa! I’m amazed! Datalogics is THE place to go for anything Apple in Chennai, and Mr. Diwakar rules!
(http://www.datalogicsindia.com/)
Then I stop to ponder how symbolic the whole situation is of my own life and where it has been. I had made a mighty big mistake but a few months back and put myself through the torture of blaming myself and trying to figure out what I had done wrong and what I could do to make things right. Oh, so much shame, pain, guilt and self-condemnation, not to mention the anger and bitterness! Over the months I had learned to accept my mistakes, forgive the other people concerned and ask for forgiveness myself – both of God and man. That done, I thought that I had learned all I could from my mistakes and that time would heal, but I was wrong.
Like my laptop I was at a fragile point in life and despite having taken all the precautions I thought necessary, I was on the brink of crashing under pressure. Nothing I could do in my own might could ever make things right – not the mind, not the will, not the knowledge or the power. Trying to reformat my system wouldn’t be good enough either, because somewhere there would always be a bad sector and time and again I would only keep crashing. Only He could take my corrupt, messy, wounded heart of stone and give me a pure, clean heart of flesh, a heart that could love again and be loved in return. All the trash of the past would be wiped out and I could begin again with a clean slate. No doubt it would be difficult to rebuild from scratch, but it would be well worth the effort. It was just a simple choice I had to make, and it would literally cost me nothing. I had a life-long warranty in Him.
So… I begin afresh by forgiving myself and letting go, giving it all up to my Maker and letting Him give me a complete change of heart drive.
The Well Watered Tree 