April 28 – “Hardware Equipment Failure”

This morning's plan was simple enough.  Go to Home Depot in League City.  Pick up our order of vanity tops for the bathrooms.  See if they had bead board paneling to go behind our wall cabinets in the family room.  Take it all to Galveston.  Have lunch at Luby's.    A great plan.  I even got up at 5:30 to get some more work done on the sermon so I could be ready to go.  That part worked out great.  Got a lot done on the computer.  Speaking of the computer, I was kind of worried about our laptop.  It was plugged into the docking station last night, charging up, when the latest monsoon struck.  Parts of Houston had eleven inches of rain.  Lightning was flashing and thunder booming all around us.  It was a great light show.  And then an especially close one struck, and the lights went out.  They were only out for a short time, but it doesn't take much to fry a computer.  I went over to check out the laptop, because the lights were all still on.  When I pushed the start button, a blue screen flashed in front of me, with a message: "Hardware equipment failure."  Near panic.  I turned everything off and waited until all the weather passed over.  Then I carefully turned it back on – like being careful would make any difference.  But all appeared well.  It's still working OK now.   But back to the plan.  Home Depot called us when we were in their parking lot to let us know – in a cheery voice – that the vanity tops would be in tomorrow sometime between eleven and two.  Great.  They were due last week.  Another Home Depot masterpiece.  Chris will never order from them again.  And to top it off, they didn't have the bead board we wanted, either.  We went across the street to Lowe's, though.  They had the bead board.  We were even able to pick up some tiles for our contractor.   We dropped off the wood and tiles at the house and had our Luby's lunch.  There's still plenty of action going on by the finish carpenters.  We'll leave it to them.    This afternoon we stopped by the hospital to visit a lady from Seaside.  She has had all kinds of tough luck over the last few months.  Shattered ankle.  Staph infection.  But she has a great attitude.  She kept us laughing the whole time we were there.  Helped me put my priorities in order.  I still feel beat.  People still do sad things.  But the only thing that matters is Jesus.    Philippians 3:7-11 says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."   Father, thanks for giving us a chance to keep Cailyn tonight.  Love me at least as much as I love her, OK?  Amen.