It was a brief storm but the lightening was vicious and when we heard a loud pop in the back yard I ended up with a 75 pound Australian shepherd in my lap and a tv, air conditioning unit, phone line, cable line and internet all zapped. I can’t ever remember a lightning strike hitting us before. There have been plenty of times we’ve had bad storms and it sounded like lightening was as close as our back door…but fortunately we always escaped any damage. In the grand scheme of things, losing our phone line, internet, cable and air conditioning were minor inconveniences. After all, just a few months ago the South Georgia area endured some storms and tornadoes that blew some houses down and took lives, so who am I to complain about losing my cable for a week? Still, why do our own problems loom large? They just do. They can grab ahold of us as if we’re a piece of laundry and just wring us dry. Maybe it was the timing that was of personal frustration to me. It had been a rough few weeks since I’d resigned my job. I haven’t blogged through these weeks because I’ve still been processing everything that happened. I was still asking myself questions. “Did I do the right thing?” “Does God have something out there for me?” “Are we going to be able to pay the bills?” I had been praying that God would increase my faith during this time. I prayed that I would trust God and lean on God for direction and that I would not fear the future…..God would provide. When the lightning struck and we realized what happened, my first thought was, “really? How much is all this going cost?” And my next thought was “why now?” Is there ever a good time for a storm? Do we ever wake up and say “Morning Lord! Feel free to shoot a rain cloud my way, I’m feeling like a good thunderstorm!” Not me either. So I started making the phone calls to repairmen and tried to not think about what the cost was going to be and how I was going to be able to sleep that night without our a/c. But guess what? A cold front came through Valdosta that night and the next day was a breezy, cool, sunny 68 degrees. The kind of perfect day for opening all the windows and letting the house breathe. And although it would take two days for the phone man to come and another 5 days for the cable guy to show up, the A/C men showed up that same day. Turns out the A/C unit motor and fan were fine….the lightening just freaked our thermostat out. So off it came and a new one was installed. Did I mention it was covered by the maintenance plan and so there was no charge? And we actually have a digital thermostat now. The old was old. So old that the knobs were missing and in order to bump the thermostat up or down we had an old pencil (broken in half) sitting on top of the thermostat that we kept there just to be able to change the temp. Almost 10 years and that pencil never went missing. Now we have fancy new push buttons. Who’duv thunk? (that’s lingo for can you believe it?...just in case I threw you off for a sec) The phone guys were scheduled to show up on Friday. The very nice voice recording ( "she writes sarcastically") asked me to leave a number where I could be reached so they could call me to let me know when they were about to come out. I knew my daughter had an outpatient surgery scheduled for that day but figured I could run home and let them in the house when they called. We were desperate for our wifi to be up and running again which is bundled through our phone service. I never heard my phone ring and so as soon as we got back to the house I was surprised when Ben discovered a note on the door saying that AT&T had come by and “sorry we missed you and you’ll need to reschedule” just as I was discovering the missed call on my phone. SOAPBOX MOMENT**** If AT&T says we’ll call before we come, shouldn’t that mean…”and if you DON’T answer, we won’t come and we’ll try calling you again?” UGGG. It was Friday and recording said the next available service date would be the following Tuesday. There was no choice but to wait. As I listened to the voicemail on my phone from the service man, I realized he’d left the phone number of his manager. So I decided it couldn’t hurt to at least register my complaint. I called the number and it went straight to voice mail. Of course. I imagined he would never even check it. But I guess he did, cause Sunday morning at 8 am while I was at the jail, the AT&T guy called again to come out. This time it was the manager. Of course it went to my voice mail and since I can’t take my phone into the jail my first thought was “not again”. But in just a few minutes Ben text me that he was still at the house and was shocked when AT&T was knocking on the door at 8 am. Wifi fixed. All we need now is to buy a new phone. The cable guy finally showed up late yesterday afternoon. In less than an hour we had cable restored. Of course, our TV doesn’t work so we’ll be shopping. I’m not sure, but I think our TV is about 20 years old. Who knows? We may even get a flat screen, smart tv. Welcome to 2017. All in all we’ve survived the storm and I’ve learned some lessons: 1. When lightning strikes, I need to jump in God’s lap. 2. Sometimes answers show up the next day, sometimes it takes longer. 3. A storm might just help you fix some things that have needed fixing for a long time.
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AuthorHi! I am Donna and I'm traveling. It's a journey to discover who I am in Christ every day....no looking back, face to the Son! Come join me! Archives
October 2017
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