See more 7 Quick Takes Friday contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.
1. This week has been emotionally dominated by a conference where I had to make a presentation, for which I felt unprepared. Each day, as the conference approached, made me more nervous. I was certain my boss had selected the most wrong person to do this particular presentation. Worst, none of the support technology was working. I had to take a tech specialist with me, tie back to tech specialists in our California office, and get some help from the hotel tech specialists. Still, up until a few minutes before the conference, nothing seemed to be working. My topic? The advantages of modern technology! A prayer and a day later, all was over, and the result was unexpected. Everything worked, and the conference was abuzz with the content of the presentation. The person who followed me called it “spectacular.” I know it had nothing to do with me, so I later presented award coins to the tech specialists who provided the support. It was their work that created the fascination.
2. On Saturday, I encountered an unexpected situation where I ended up reluctantly using
God’s credit card to pay for Donnie’s new computer. He had a chance to get 25% off on a new laptop, which he desperately needed since his desktop stopped work a couple of weeks ago and his current laptop is ten years old. He was dead in the water when it came to doing his work, which is graphics consulting. It turned out that he was several hundred dollars short, and the only credit card that had that much money available on it was God’s credit card. I was very reluctant to use it. I do not use it for personal needs, but if we did not use it at this point, Donnie would be without work for a while since we could not afford the regular price and the special deal was available only on Saturday. Sighing, I agreed to use God’s credit card, feeling considerably guilty about it and hoping that we, too, might be considered worthy of God’s financial help. I mentally calculated the length of time it would take me to pay off the card, and that did not reassure me at all. Then I went to the post office, and in the mail box was a new credit card from USAA, offered because I had spent eight years in the military years ago. The credit line was the same as on God’s credit card, and I would be able to transfer the balance without any interest for a year on Monday. I have now activated the card, and God has his card back. That is pretty stunning: God rescued His credit card from my illicit use! I know now that I must keep that card clear for God’s purposes—and people in need are sent my way routinely. If I had had any doubt that this particular credit card belongs to Him (I did not), that doubt would have been entirely erased on Saturday.
3. The conference took place in Yorktown, Virginia, and one of my senior managers also attended. His daughter is a sophomore at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. She gave us a tour of the campus and of colonial Williamsburg. It was a very relaxing and educational visit. I had no idea that William and Mary was the second oldest college in the USA, nor that the main building, still standing, had been burned three times as a result of war action in this country. We finished our walk and left town with the smell of honeysuckle still with us.
4. After the conference, the senior manager and I flew to Nashville to visit one of our offices over the state border in Kentucky. We had a lovely dinner in Clarksville, TN, on the Columbia River at a café called The Black Horse, well known for its good beers. More interesting, though, was the drenching thunderstorm that barraged us while we were at a meeting earlier that day. Such storms almost never occur in California. In fact, in 1998, I remember with some mirth the broadcast of the local weatherman who explained thunder and lightning to listeners after a number of frightened people had called in and asked for an explanation of the “electricity in the sky.”
5. As has happened so often in the past, I spent Mother’s day in the air, en route to the technology conference. The kids all called and sent e-cards. The best gift I received, however, was that my Blackberry stopped working at midnight, just hours before I had to leave, so I have been incommunicado with my office all week. I will probably have 4000+ e-mails waiting upon return, but this week has been blessedly quiet, without the normal 700 or so messages per day that I usually get.
6. I have been finding pennies unexpectedly on this trip. The first one appeared under my feet on the plane. I did not notice it getting on the plane, but there it was when I was getting off the plane. The second one I found on the floor of the cupboard of the hotel in which I stayed while at the conference. The third one was in the bin I picked up for running my computer through the security screening at the airport when leaving from the conference. Three pennies does not a trend make, but if I find a fourth, I am definitely going to wonder about the significance of them.
7. We had quite a scare this week. Our cat, Intrepid, got into the laundry room, which is off limits to the cats, and was happily chomping down on the house warming plant, a black lily, that a friend had given us. Treps is quite a plant devourer, so we do not keep any plants in the house. This one was with us only temporarily until we could find a better home for it and, we thought, securely locked away. Donnie looked up black lilies online and found that they are toxic for cats. Yet, Treps was not showing any side effects. So, he decided to watch him closely over the next 24 hours. I decided to put the matter in God’s hands. Treps was a rescued feral kitten who was starving in Jordan when his mother died and brought to us by one of the professors who found him in his garden, squawking about not wanting to die. We nursed him into good health, and he formed a very strong bond with Donnie. Every night he and Donnie fall asleep together, with Treps sleeping on top of Donnie. He is only four years old—too young to die. We have had too little time with him. The outcome? Treps survived his ingestion of the poisonous plant, thank God! Literally.
See more 7 Quick Takes Friday contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.
1. This week has been emotionally dominated by a conference where I had to make a presentation, for which I felt unprepared. Each day, as the conference approached, made me more nervous. I was certain my boss had selected the most wrong person to do this particular presentation. Worst, none of the support technology was working. I had to take a tech specialist with me, tie back to tech specialists in our California office, and get some help from the hotel tech specialists. Still, up until a few minutes before the conference, nothing seemed to be working. My topic? The advantages of modern technology! A prayer and a day later, all was over, and the result was unexpected. Everything worked, and the conference was abuzz with the content of the presentation. The person who followed me called it “spectacular.” I know it had nothing to do with me, so I later presented award coins to the tech specialists who provided the support. It was their work that created the fascination.
2. On Saturday, I encountered an unexpected situation where I ended up reluctantly using God’s credit card to pay for Donnie’s new computer. He had a chance to get 25% off on a new laptop, which he desperately needed since his desktop stopped work a couple of weeks ago and his current laptop is ten years old. He was dead in the water when it came to doing his work, which is graphics consulting. It turned out that he was several hundred dollars short, and the only credit card that had that much money available on it was God’s credit card. I was very reluctant to use it. I do not use it for personal needs, but if we did not use it at this point, Donnie would be without work for a while since we could not afford the regular price and the special deal was available only on Saturday. Sighing, I agreed to use God’s credit card, feeling considerably guilty about it and hoping that we, too, might be considered worthy of God’s financial help. I mentally calculated the length of time it would take me to pay off the card, and that did not reassure me at all. Then I went to the post office, and in the mail box was a new credit card from USAA, offered because I had spent eight years in the military years ago. The credit line was the same as on God’s credit card, and I would be able to transfer the balance without any interest for a year on Monday. I have now activated the card, and God has his card back. That is pretty stunning: God rescued His credit card from my illicit use! I know now that I must keep that card clear for God’s purposes—and people in need are sent my way routinely. If I had had any doubt that this particular credit card belongs to Him (I did not), that doubt would have been entirely erased on Saturday.
3. The conference took place in Yorktown, Virginia, and one of my senior managers also attended. His daughter is a sophomore at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. She gave us a tour of the campus and of colonial Williamsburg. It was a very relaxing and educational visit. I had no idea that William and Mary was the second oldest college in the USA, nor that the main building, still standing, had been burned three times as a result of war action in this country. We finished our walk and left town with the smell of honeysuckle still with us.
4. After the conference, the senior manager and I flew to Nashville to visit one of our offices over the state border in Kentucky. We had a lovely dinner in Clarksville, TN, on the Columbia River at a café called The Black Horse, well known for its good beers. More interesting, though, was the drenching thunderstorm that barraged us while we were at a meeting earlier that day. Such storms almost never occur in California. In fact, in 1998, I remember with some mirth the broadcast of the local weatherman who explained thunder and lightning to listeners after a number of frightened people had called in and asked for an explanation of the “electricity in the sky.”
5. As has happened so often in the past, I spent Mother’s day in the air, en route to the technology conference. The kids all called and sent e-cards. The best gift I received, however, was that my Blackberry stopped working at midnight, just hours before I had to leave, so I have been incommunicado with my office all week. I will probably have 4000+ e-mails waiting upon return, but this week has been blessedly quiet, without the normal 700 or so messages per day that I usually get.
6. I have been finding pennies unexpectedly on this trip. The first one appeared under my feet on the plane. I did not notice it getting on the plane, but there it was when I was getting off the plane. The second one I found on the floor of the cupboard of the hotel in which I stayed while at the conference. The third one was in the bin I picked up for running my computer through the security screening at the airport when leaving from the conference. Three pennies does not a trend make, but if I find a fourth, I am definitely going to wonder about the significance of them. 
7. We had quite a scare this week. Our cat, Intrepid, got into the laundry room, which is off limits to the cats, and was happily chomping down on the house warming plant, a black lily, that a friend had given us. Treps is quite a plant devourer, so we do not keep any plants in the house. This one was with us only temporarily until we could find a better home for it and, we thought, securely locked away. Donnie looked up black lilies online and found that they are toxic for cats. Yet, Treps was not showing any side effects. So, he decided to watch him closely over the next 24 hours. I decided to put the matter in God’s hands. Treps was a rescued feral kitten who was starving in Jordan when his mother died and brought to us by one of the professors who found him in his garden, squawking about not wanting to die. We nursed him into good health, and he formed a very strong bond with Donnie. Every night he and Donnie fall asleep together, with Treps sleeping on top of Donnie. He is only four years old—too young to die. We have had too little time with him. The outcome? Treps survived his ingestion of the poisonous plant, thank God! Literally.
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