Together For Good

Do you ever claim a promise in the Bible as your promise for the day? Well, I've done this from time to time and found it to be something of hope I could hang a day on as it went from each event to the next.

Toward the end of last week things seemed to be taking a bit of downward spiral at work and I was feeling a tad bit frustrated by the "not working out so good" turn in the events in my life. Since I had begun this new job about 6 weeks ago events had been evolving smoothly and it’s really nice when that happens. But last week all that niceness seemed to evaporate into thin air and I was working hard at "keepin' sweet" and not saying a few words which might have fit well with the way I felt, but not so much with my surroundings (I'm a church secretary). Anyway, without going into great detail; the copy machine was not working, supplies I needed for the weekend had been guaranteed to arrive by Thursday and by the time I was left Friday afternoon they were not in sight, both printers had become deranged and my computer decided they no longer existed so therefore I couldn't print anything.

Friday, we had given the printer problem top priority among the issues that needed addressed and were trying, unsuccessfully, to get at least one back 'on line'. We were unable to find the install cds for either printer so decided to use our "dial-up" modem and download the drivers from the internet. (Yeah, whatever! Because desperate times call for desperate measures and the time had certainly become desperate.) Successfully we found one (one is better than none) of the drivers from a manufacturer’s list, clicked and began the download. It was going to take a while (italics are used to emphasize the time frame here) for the download to take place. We decided it was better than nothing and there would be no problem with just letting it continue to download at the end of the day. So I left work Friday afternoon with more than 50% of the file safely filling up space on my hard drive. I stuck a post-it note on my monitor just in case someone came along and wanted to use the computer they would know it was busy doing important work and whatever they wanted to use it for would have to wait. I left the church and decided to just try not to think about any of the problems until I HAD to again, which would be about "start time" Monday morning.

So along came Monday and I was curious about what I’d find once I got to work. I ate my breakfast, did my daily Bible reading and spent a few minutes in prayer. I thought it worth mentioning to the good Lord that when I had left work on Friday things were in a bit of a stew and, being a woman of faith, I also thought it worth mentioning that I did understand that all things worked together for good (Romans 8:28)and I was looking forward to seeing the mess resolved and order restored. Although I might not ever understand how these messed up circumstances would bring about good, I was still believing that somehow in the plan of things they would and that everthing would somehow get straightened out in the process. After all, God does have our best interests at heart, doesn’t he? Can I get an "amen" here?

I stopped at the post office and picked up the mail, then into the stop n' go for a jug of iced tea and headed to work. I knew it would be a quiet week since Pastor and his wife were off for a weeks rest. I headed into the office setting everything down then booted up the computer curious to see if the download had been successful. Of course it would be because "everything" was working together for my good, eh! Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that actually, maybe the download didn't work right. Because I couldn’t find it anywhere, no matter how thoroughly I “explored” all the files listed in my 'explorer'. But thankfully, my Windows had successfully been updated. wheeeeeeeeeee

I decided I'd tackle the printer issue later and tackle another problem. I pulled out my phone list and called the copy machine service tech guy, again, and found myself leaving another message on his machine since everyone at that company was too busy to take calls. Next I called the office supply store to find out what happened to my "guaranteed to arrive by Thursday" supplies. When I connected with our Business Rep on the phone I was informed that surely I was mistaken. She had a receiver signed by ME saying the supplies had been delivered on Friday. I assured her that I had not signed any receiver, that I did not have any supplies and I had no idea what she was talking about. Well she was all about getting with "her people" to see what the company policy was in this situation. In the meantime I should see if I could find out who had signed my name on the receiver and accepted the shipment and where they had put it. Silly me, I’m trying to figure out why anyone would sign MY name to a receiver and if they did where they hid the office supplies. OK, if they are at the church, all I have to do is find them, because this is all gonna work out to the good, RIGHT! I searched through all the church offices, into all the storage spaces and even the janitor’s closet. Still I couldn't find the gone missing office supplies.

Pastor called and, trying to keep a smile in my voice, I told him all was well. I said I was looking for solutions but could not find the downloaded file on my hard drive. He suggested I call our computer guru if I was unable to find a fix. In the meantime we had an old computer connected to a really, really slow printer and I could transfer files there and print what I just had to get done for the day. So,I called our computer guy and left him a message on his machine. I like talking to machines, don't you? By the end of the work day on Monday, the office machine service tech guy had still not returned my repeated calls, the office supply people were still certain I had signed and received 2 boxes of their supplies and was trying to scam them for some reason, the printer still was not working and I wasn't sure if the guru would be available to come in and fix things up. The good of it all seemed to entirely escape me. I went home feeling a bit like Scarlet O'Hara declaring I’d "think about it tomorrow."

My day, of course, didn't end just because I had finished work. I've been getting injections in my knee due to arthritis and wanting to delay knee replacement surgery as long as possible. There are 5 shots in the series, one a week. Honestly they are very painful to get, despite getting the knee frozen and a shot to numb the area.... yeah, they still hurt. Monday was my last shot. I didn't want to go. The day had not been too good so far and this wasn't something I wanted to experience when life was in a sucky phase. But off I went anyway. I sat on the examination table waiting for the doctor and decided I should just have a word with the "Big Guy" about how this “working together for good” day was going. My prayer wasn’t exactly this, but something like it anyway. "OK, here's the deal, Lord. You know how all this working together business has gone down today and now I figure I deserve a break. So just to make up for it, will you please direct this doctor's hand, will you please make this shot as painless as possible and will you please help this knee get better. I'll settle for all of this working together if you're so inclined. After all, according to the sermon in church yesterday, you know where I'm at and you will meet me there. So, here I sit. Have a go at it."

The doctor arrived with a little tray in hand, 2 needles and the solution to freeze my knee and went to work on me. Now this doctor and I have been doing some serious bonding over the last 5 weeks and so we chatted about books and stuff while she did her thing. When it was time to insert the final needle she asked "Here it comes, are you ready?"

"I'm ready," I said, really thinking "just do it and get it over with". I felt the needle pierce my knee, I felt the pressure, I stared at the ceiling and was about to proceed with the holding my breath phase and courting to a thousand bit when she announced that that was it. I looked down at the empty syringe, flabbergasted. It had been totally painless. I looked at her and grinned and said, “Well 4 weeks of practice and then on the last shot you finally got it right.” She just laughed. I told her I was a believer in prayer and had done some serious asking God to make this last shot easy. She said she had been praying the same way. Well, there you have it... 2 agree on anything and it is a done deal. She and I should have been putting our prayers together a few weeks earlier. I walked out of the doctor's office without limping, crawled into my car and headed home. I figured that I might not have the answers to how God works things out but I was sure that He did care about the bits and pieces of my life.

This morning I arrived at work with an agenda to get everything FIXED. I had a plan. 5 minutes after getting there the delivery man walked into my office, bringing the 2 boxes of office supplies which supposedly had been delivered Friday. A few minutes later the phone rang and my copy machine service tech apologized for not returning my call. He had been on vacation and today was his first day back at work. He had a busy schedule but he'd be by today to take care of my copy machine. And our computer guru came in and before he left had both printers ‘on line’ and working again.

I guess I could end this with that old cliché, "alls well that ends well," but there's much more to it than that. There is the assurance that although we do not see God's hand at work in our circumstances He is still knitting together the events of our lives and bringing things completely together working them into a pattern that is ultimately for our good, yes, He does! Amen.