May 8 – “It’s been a long road …”

After church we went to Salsa’s with a group of friends.  It was a lot of fun introducing Jennifer to the mysterious world that is the life of Robert, the “Maybe Secret Agent.”  When we got home I quickly turned on the Astros game.  Sadly, though, I was pretty beat, so I dozed off.  Almost missed Altuve’s homerun, too.  I roused up just as he was coming to the plate to bat.  Exciting stuff. 

After the game we decided to watch some of that all-time endearing favorite, that classic science fiction thriller with the most endearing opening theme song ever.  In fact I have appropriated a phrase from it that I now use to refer to Chris, in case you ever hear me mention it to her.  She is now the “Faith of My Heart.”  Sigh.  Anyone who has ever seen Star Trek: Enterprise understands the impact of that little song that starts every episode.  It’s one of those masterpieces that you just can’t get out of your head anyway, so you may as well embrace it and sing along.  “It’s been a long road … getting from there to here…”  Sorry.  I was humming and the words just spilled out.

So as we tried to get to Netflix yesterday to catch the next exciting episode, we had another interesting error code show up.  Something along the lines of, “Something truly terrible has occurred.  Your television set will self-destruct in 30 seconds if you don’t leave Netflix immediately.  And don’t even think about returning until you are willing to discuss terms of unconditional surrender.”  And then it began counting down from thirty.  It was quite the frightening experience.  So much so in fact that hastily punched the escape button.  But then, as you might imagine, my curiosity got the best of me, and I failed to heed the warning.  I returned to Netflix.  Same error code and warning popped up on the screen.  This time I let the countdown continue.  All the way from 30 to zero.  I was on the edge of my seats, anxiously awaiting the impending explosion, paralyzed by my dread, yet eerily excited at the prospect of being there when it finally happened.  Five.  Four.  Three.  Two.  One.  Zero.  I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn’t force then shut.  I had to witness the horror for myself.  And then it happened.  A brief blank screen.  And then … and then … it tried to reconnect to Netflix.  Wait.  Is that all?  Is this the horror that we were warned about?  Of course the reconnect attempt failed as well. 

Come to find out, our internet was temporarily down.  Chris figured it out when she tried to go online to check email or go online shopping or something.  I rebooted our modem and after five or ten minutes we were back in business.  “It’s been a long time.  But my time is finally here … I’ve got faith of the heart …”

Hebrews 7:22 says, “Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.”

Father, thank you for food with friends and for the “Faith of my Heart” wife you gifted me with.  Amen.