How do you overcome obstacles that come your way? Learn two basic options through this story of Heather’s frustration in a crazy 24 hours.
A couple days ago, I went to update a plugin for my blog, and my entire website died an immediate and painful death.
I.e. it “crashed.” I’m not a tech person, but I know my screen wasn’t supposed to go blank when I clicked that “update” button.
If you stopped by my website during that time, you saw this message: “There has been a critical error on your website.”
Sorry for any inconvenience this caused, especially if you were trying to get into my resource library for one of my free downloads. (If that was the case, you can get access to it here!)
Table of Contents
The Stress-Causing, Annoying Difficult Stuff
My website dying was one of several events within 24 hours that could have caused me to lose my mind.
Actually, this is the fourth day I’ve been dealing with the website issues, but those first 24 hours were like having fireworks all ready to light up and launch in a beautiful sequence, but instead someone dropped a match into the box and they all went off at once.
Not pretty, kind of scary, and such a let down.
I tried to not freak out about my computer, and after screaming into my hands once or twice, I went to bed. It was late so planned to get some rest and deal with the problem when I was refreshed.
The next morning, more fireworks.
My husband was on a work trip, and we ran a bit late for school. Traffic was so bad that the school wasn’t handing out tardies (thankfully). But after school drop-off, it took me almost 30 MINUTES TO GET OUT OF THE SCHOOL PARKING LOT.
Did that feel like yelling? I needed to yell that. Maybe I’m not over it.
Next, I finally dropped my blonde child off at preschool (after 90 minutes in the car), and arrived at the gym.
I don’t work out at the gym. I don’t work out at all actually, but that’s not part of the story. I go to the gym for the free childcare and use their WiFi for a couple hours to work. It’s like heaven. My child plays while I blog.
However, that day the WiFi wasn’t working. No big deal, I’ll just use my personal hot-spot like I’ve done many times before.
But Personal Hot-Spot apparently heard about my website’s death and had to take the day off. No internet for me.
What the what?! More screaming into my hands. And a lot of prayers.
I collected my child and went back home until preschool pickup.
First World Probs?
I’ll pause now and acknowledge that these aren’t huge problems like starvation or not having clean water. They’re first world problems.
But guess what else they are: they’re MY problems. They are the challenges I’m facing now, and they matter to me.
My challenges don’t “not matter” because they have to do with computers and traffic. I still have to deal with my emotions, process them and get back to a place of peace. If I pretend they don’t matter, I might never deal with them but instead bury them like a mine in a field. And we know what happens when mines get stepped on later…
Cue explosion.
So, during these crazy days and hours, I had 2 options to overcome my obstacles:
1- Let all the crap I was dealing with ruin my day. I could let it consume me. I could let my frustrations affect everything I did that day including how I treated my children. I could be a brat and throw a tantrum.
Or,
2- I could trust God. Gasp. Like, actually live out my faith. Live in the reality that my circumstances don’t have to impact me or my outlook on the day. Trust that He is bigger than my problems and can actually still give me peace.
I had a talk with God about this. I asked, “So are You actually still here in this? And where are You?” I got a positive response. Yep, still here. Still in control.
And I had peace. It’s so crazy to me that we can have peace during things that seem disastrous to us. But we can.
Not to say I wasn’t still frustrated or experiencing various emotions of worry, anger, irritation, and dismay. But each time I felt one of those things, back to the decision tree: Tantrum or Trust?
Full disclosure, sometimes I made better decisions than others. But realizing in the moment that there’s a decision is a huge step forward for me.
Your Turn:
How do you handle unexpected issues in your day?
Or,
What helps you trust God during difficult times?
