Of Tests and Technology

I love technology. Especially cool gadgets like the new computer I’m waiting patiently for FedEx to bring me. ( http://www.apple.com/imac ) But sometimes technology can cause me to want to throw things out the window and scream like a school girl who’s just seen a daddy longlegs. I have been going back and forth with tech support for the past three weeks (it seems like three million), trying to get The Lemonade Stand back online. I’m pretty good with certain technological things, but this issue has been completely over my head, and I’m at the mercy of said tech support. Through many fits of “Why, God, Why?”, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a test. I think. Life is one big series of tests. You pass one and you move to another. In the end, I believe you’re a lot closer to the person God had seen in you all along. Only with a bigger gut. I think the challenges before me are tests of reliance, discipline, and patience. Do I have the faith to rely on tech support, and more importantly, God, to provide a solution I’m not able to come up with? Do I have the discipline to focus on the other things that need to be done and not be consumed incessantly tinkering with a problem that I can only make worse as I desperately clamor for control in the situation? And do I have the patience to withstand all of it? That’s the big question. The only thing I can be certain of is that after this episode is behind me, another test will come rolling along. Someone once said that you can’t control what life throws at you, but you can control how you react to it. And so thus far, nothing has been hurled out my office window. Perhaps by the time you read this, everything will be back to normal and I’ll be loving Silicon Valley again. But if you read this a year from now and we’re still having problems, look me up in Haiti. I’ll be on the beach with a volleyball named Wilson.