The old movie by the name Lost in Space has lost its familiarity in the past few years. However, the current phrase “lost in cyberspace” is familiar to everyone who is even the tiniest bit literate in computers. That is a situation to which we have all been privy, meaning that a valuable writing or a necessary work on the computer has been temporarily or permanently lost, possibly never to return again.
Recently my husband and I had an upsetting experience along the lines of lost in cyberspace.
My husband Steve had been employed to stenographically record a full day of trial depositions. I had transcribed them for him, which required three long, tedious days at the computer. The attorneys and the witnesses were all fast talkers and ungifted in proper sentence structure, so that increased our work load tremendously. I trudged along and finally got to the end. The notation at the end which said, “Deposition Concluded” was a welcome sight to my tired eyes and hands. I quickly speed-read over the entire 200 pages, then ran it through the spell checker, eager to turn the rough draft of the deposition over to my husband for his final chore of printing it out and proof reading it. Fixing dinner was a welcome diversion from working on the 200 difficult page depositions which had required my devotion for the past three days. I busied myself in the kitchen while my husband proceeded to split the 200 pages into two depositions before he printed it out. My joyful retreat into cooking by chopping veggies was suddenly interrupted by a dreaded sound coming from the computer room. A loud, “Oh, no,” is never a welcome exclamation when dealing with computer aided transcripts. I never like to ask what happened in relation to a similar expression in relation to computer work, but I had to ask this time, “What happened?” I was really not wanting to know the answer if it would require me to have to repeat any of the difficult work. The dreaded answer came back, “I lost the first deposition, all 100 page of it, when I split it off. I can’t find it anywhere.” My heart sunk. That meant bad news. I might have to re-transcribe the difficult pages, requiring even more hours at the computer going over the same but still difficult testimony. My husband spent an hour looking in every file, every folder, even in the backup folders, to no avail. The transcript of the deposition was gone. My mind began to tumble, like Jack and Jill when they fell down the hill, tumbling into despair. This gave new meaning to “broke his crown” to me because I was definitely beginning to display a broken attitude from the situation. We both decided to put the problem aside and enjoy the evening, tackling the problem in the light of a new day. We’re in the habit of praying about every problem, knowing that God’s brain, since it‘s much more advanced than our brains, can find solutions that we don’t even know exist. The next morning Steve called the computer software company to employ their expertise in helping to solve the problem. As fate would have it, all technicians were busy with other calls, so my husband left a message with all the pertinent information about what had happened. Knowing that it might be hours and hours before they returned a call, he went to our grandson’s ball game. I went outside to mow the lawn, one of my enjoyable activities. After finishing the mowing job, I went back inside the house to see if there was a return call from the software company. There was a detailed call from one of the male techs which cautioned my husband not to do certain things or it would be impossible to retrieve the missing deposition file. Too late. He had already tried all of the maneuvers that were warned against. Things were looking bad and I envisioned having to do the work all over again. A few hours later the computer tech called again and echoed the instructions he had left on the answering machine, cautioning us not to do certain things, which my husband had already done. It was beginning to look hopeless. I decided to put a load of clothes into the washing machine. As I entered the laundry room I saw a pair of white cotton pants that I had put on the washer to add to the next load of whites. My eyes landed on a stain on the white pants. It was in the shape of a perfect heart. I couldn’t believe my eyes, that it was a perfect heart shape. That heart shaped stain was an indication to me that everything was going to turn out great, a promise from a loving God. How many times have you seen a stain in the shape of a perfect heart? I told my husband about it the minute he returned from the ball game. He had to see it himself. He was dumbfounded, also, but filled with faith that everything would turn out fine. In fact, we were so filled with hope and faith that the rest of the weekend went great. We managed to put aside any concern about the 100 pages which were lost in space somewhere. Early Monday morning it was time to tackle the problem. My husband called the software company again. This time a female tech answered his call. He told her the problem and told her what the male tech had said. The two of them worked together for a while, with the tech instructing him on things to do, and then her working alone doing heaven only knows what; and I mean that literally. After about 45 minutes I decided it was safe to go into the computer room. I saw a smile on my husband’s face as he mouthed the words to me, “She found it.” And she had! Hallelujah! The divinely inspired scenario had worked out perfectly. The male tech would have been limited in his knowledge and also in the patience to try the detailed things that the female tech tried. She was the one chosen by the heavens to answer the phone that morning. It wasn’t even Valentine’s Day, but the heart that came from God and His angels was the promise that there was a way already being made to solve the problem. The scenario played out just the way it was supposed to. God comes through every time, even leaving evidence of His ability to do more than we dare think or imagine. Nothing is ever lost. Everything is always found because God knows where it is all the time,; somewhere in space or somewhere in cyberspace, it makes no difference. Nothing is hidden from God. We felt a bit silly rejoicing over a stain, but a heart stain is worth rejoicing over. Wouldn’t you have liked to have seen how the angel that God chose for that mission accomplished it? That would have been fun, to see it being painted on the pants, but we’re rejoicing mightily that it actually happened. God does work in mysterious ways, and we beheld His glory in the shape of a heart.
