Trials and errors

I'm exhausted. My eyes burn, my head aches and my heart is all knotted up inside. So much has happened in the last week, and it still weighs heavily on me.

Our hard drive decided to crash Tuesday.

It was perfect timing. I mean, I had almost finished a 17-page query letter outlining my novel that I was going to send to publishers by the end of the month. I was editing the last 10 chapters of the book before closing it for good. Ben and I had just finished recording number 22 of the 25 songs we're considering for Progeny's next album.

Perfect timing.

I won't even mention the thousands of pictures and video clips of Jadon's milestones...or the time-consuming tax records that I started back in January...or the words to all the new songs Ben and I had written...or all the Web projects Ben has built in the last year.

Mentioning it all just makes me sick to my stomach.

I was driving home from work yesterday, listening to some songs that usually boost my spirits...and I only felt this terrible despair because we had exhausted our last hope of retrieving the files...and I couldn't stop thinking about all the time we had wasted on those projects, all the months we had lost. I couldn't hold back my angry tears or the words that tumbled from my mouth: "Why would you do it, Lord, when all of this work was for You?!!"

He didn't answer me. But with morning's light, I have found a faint glimmer of understanding.

I was reading through my 432-page novel for the last time. Maybe God wanted me to carefully comb through it again, make it the best it could be, before submitting it to publishers. Maybe the query letter wasn't quite as good as it will be now that I've had some practice writing one. Maybe God wanted to tweak some of the songs Ben and I have written for our second album, and He only wanted us to look more carefully at them. Maybe he knew Ben could build better Web sites now that he's done so many.

Maybe He wanted to show us how dependent we are on technology.

I told God that if He didn't retrieve the data on our hard drive, I was going to step away from my book--and Progeny's second recording project--for a year. But I know in my heart that's not what He intends me to do. He wants me to keep pressing on, until I have completed the task(s) He has laid out for me. Lord, let me be more diligent, more intentional, a better steward this time around.

I was telling a friend today that with all the family stuff that's been going on in Ben's and my life, the problems with my job and this on top of it all, I've had to fight not to harden my heart, a self-protection tactic I learned as a young child. I think it's only in the aching, in the really feeling the sorrow in our hearts, that we can truly experience all God intends to teach us in a trial.

And He will use technology. So be sure to back up your files.

In the meantime, I'm thankful that I have a roof over my head and a world-class husband and beautiful child with whom I can share it.