Material Possessions

Ever since going to the Urbana Missions Conference in 2003, I have had an understanding of the need to hold our material possessions loosely. Nothing on this earth is "mine" and I take nothing with me into eternity. It is a huge load off my shoulders to be free from the bondage that the things I have can bring into my life.

About six weeks ago, Greg and I were robbed and "my" laptop was taken. Thankfully all the files that were on that computer had been transferred over to Greg's laptop, so we actually lost nothing in that category. No one was hurt, and nothing else was taken. Then two weeks later, Greg's laptop decided to stop working. The internal internet card broke down first, causing us to need an external internet card. So we bought that. Then the monitor screen stopped working completely. This was very frustrating. It came back on for us two more times before completely going caput. During the time we had between the robbery and the screen blackout, Greg was able to save some pictures and most of his work files onto a jump drive. I was thankful that I found a link on the internet to an HP webpage that listed certain problems that would be covered for free under an extended warranty they'd set up for these erraneous problems. Without fishing for that website, we would have been charged an enormous amount for fixing the laptop- believe me, they tried to stick us with big charges when we sent it to them. Well we got Greg's laptop back today and they had erased the hard drive in order to fix the screen and the internet card. So not only were many pictures, files, and all of our music we'd burned from old cd's lost, but all the programs Greg had loaded onto this computer were lost as well.

I am trying to hold this possession loosely and be so thankful that they were able to fix the computer to work again. And to be thankful that we do still have some pictures. And to be thankful that it didn't cost us anything to have it fixed. But it did cost us many memories and many cd's that we no longer have or are too scratched to burn now. And it is costing my husband precious time to re-construct this computer to be useable for his work again- time he so longs to be using to work on papers and class prep. Please pray with me that we will not be too stressed out with these hiccups in our life and that we will overflow with thankfulness over the Lord's great blessings and provision in our lives. Thanks!