Hopefully a timely word for someone

Hi friends!

I hope you had a nice weekend. We had some beautiful weather even though some of it was hot. The skies were just the bluest of blue though and filled with huge puffy clouds that were a bit sluggish at sliding across the sun as we sat in the heat of an Illini game, but still beautiful. So you have to give credit for that.

Yesterday afternoon, Russ was golfing and I was reading at a table in the shade when a text alert came over my phone that some android had signed in to our wifi.

Though the sky continued with all that blueness and beauty previously described, I suddenly felt a dark cloud pass over. I used the app from our provider to pause whatever this was and when we got home, I started a process of phone calls with tech people that took the greater part of the late afternoon and evening.

With all our best efforts and a two hour rehab of our modem done remotely, the issue with trying to change password and delete this paused intruder was unresolved.

And so when I laid my head down to sleep, it was with the knowledge that we will have to live with the situation until a real live tech person is in our area two days from now and will be arriving at our door to hopefully fix the problem.

Several times in the night I rolled over and checked the app to make sure the unwanted android was still paused and no new interloper had signed on.

Why am I sharing?

Because it seems when something happens in my life, there are similar events happening in the lives of those who show up here, so I want to share a little of the insights that are getting me through this.

The scenario of feeling like our account has been hacked produces a high level anxiety in me. Not being able to resolve the issue with all the tech support that tried to address does nothing to help lessen the obsessive checking back to see if things are going okay with what I can see on my end.

I feel helpless and overwhelmed and I have absolutely no resources to alleviate the situation. It is completely out of my control. So at this point I have two choices I can make.

I can worry myself into exhaustion and miss the next two and a half days of my life, or I can lean hard into God and take deep breaths and do the things I do have control over….such as cleaning our house like I do on Mondays, fixing meals, doing the Bible journaling exercise I have been practicing, care for family, pray for friends and loved ones, walk, weed the landscaping, declutter the entry way shelving…etc, etc, etc.

So this morning I called my sister by marriage, but definitely sister in heart, Sonja and asked her to just let me pray with her. I prayed and asked God to help me not obsess. I asked Him to give me wisdom about what I needed to do on our end and trust that He was guarding and protecting us from outside attacks.

I asked for His peace to overtake my tendency to fret and worry. And I declared that the powers that be over our internet are greater than I am, but I AM is greater than Xfinity and cyber attacks and everything else.

The reason I called her and I did the praying was so I had an accountability partner hearing my heart cry to be obedient about not being anxious. I wanted someone to hear my prayer and to agree with me that I have this tendency toward worry and fear and I was calling it out.

Have I stopped checking my app? No.

But instead of checking every five minutes, I just check hourly for any signs of activity.

Have I completely forgotten the problem? No.

But I am showered, dressed, have had breakfast and done devotions, completed a few of my Monday chores and am finishing this so I can do the rest.

I don’t know what is weighing on your mind today, but I am praying for you to find a way to roll that burden onto bigger shoulders. I am praying for direct wisdom and clarity on what you can do, and strength to fight the temptation to waste your day in fear and worry.

I encourage you to speak what you are afraid of out into the atmosphere and declare our God is bigger than that fear. I pray you go back as many times as that fear rises up in you today to threaten to undo you and I pray you watch it cower back when you remind the thing you are afraid of that you are choosing to move forward in faith.

We are not only saved by grace, we LIVE by grace. God’s grace poured out over us in all the situations of our daily existence.

God bless you.

You are so precious and are dearly loved <3

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