Computers and Prayer

No, I don't really mean I'm praying for my computer, though maybe if I had, it wouldn't have died. I just have two things to talk about today--my computers and prayer.

A few days ago my computer died. It was Rachel's old computer, 5 years old, so I guess it was about time to die. The bad news--I hadn't backed it up the day before. The good news--I had backed it up a week ago.

So then I moved to a Compaq laptop, which I'm using as I type this blog. This computer was also given to me, and is so old it doesn't have a USB connector. But it doesn't reboot itself, so at least it works. The strange thing about this computer is that it has some kind of nanny software on it, and there is a list of words it won't let me type. Well, I can type them, it just won't display them. This feature works equally well whether I'm using IE or Firefox, and I can't discover what program is running to cause it.

So now I'm trying to get hand-me-down computer #3 working. This one is a Toshiba laptop with a nice big screen. Still not a very new machine, but at least it has a couple USB connectors on it. We tried to install the OS and just had so many problems that we decided to ask for help. So today I just took it over the the nice guys at the Center computer services, and they seemed to think in about 24 hours they could have it working for me. It was pleasant to have them smile at me and say, "Sure, I can do that for you." So, maybe in a day or two I'll see if I have a "new" computer. Then I'll see if I can install my backups.

Now to the prayer topic. Today the whole center was supposed to spend 9am-noon in prayer. I had one assignment I had to turn in by noon, so I hurried and got that finished, then went to the meeting room where the prayer meeting was being held. It seemed hot and stuffy in there, and the weather outside is beautiful today (after yesterday's tornado warning and hail storm). So I decided I would do my praying by myself as I walked. There are some cool hiking trails behind our center, and the weather was nice, and the birds were singing, and the flowers were flowering,... I just couldn't bear to be cooped up.

And I did pray, or at least I tried to, but God kept interrupting me. First there were the flowers--how many of them did he put on that trail? Such a variety, and so much fun to try to identify. Then there were the bird conversations that I couldn't help but overhear. Honestly, birds do talk back and forth, repeatedly, to each other, first on the left, then on the right. Then there were the bugs who were mating, but I won't go into that. How did God expect me to concentrate on praying when there were so many beautiful things in His creation to take in?