Finding Peace in the Pieces

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"You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you."

Isaiah 26:3

My work laptop broke.

Again.

The thing's a piece of...ship. Because I follow Christ and can't use the other word. So we shall call it a three-masted schooner with a leak in its side, a broken rudder, torn sails, and a captain with such severe sunstroke he yells "avast ye ladies" instead of "avast ye maties," deeply insulting his crew.

I once again made the trek into D.C. from my home in Northern Virginia to have IT take a look. Out-of-towners don't get it. Us "NoVA" folks don't "trek" into the city. We stay on our Virginia side, thank you very much.

Once at the D.C. IT office, the guy sporting a "why are you annoying me by asking me to do my job face" studied my shipwrecked laptop for all of 30 seconds before telling me to go to the building across the street to get a loaner. He didn't know how long the repair would take, but it would probably be a while. Great.

Well, the computer system at the second office building was apparently down, so after witnessing the Ernie and Burt of the loaner laptop-world nearly malfunction over how to conduct sign-outs using paper instead of screens, I received my loaner and made my way back to the first IT guy. He played around for 15 or so minutes with the loaner, pronounced it broken, and sent me back for a new one.

Now, it's worth adding that building numero dos was probably built sometime around the 1950's and has seen approximately zero upgrades since then. There are no windows, the walls are painted cinderblocks, the ceiling tiles are littered with brown water stains, and the tile floor has an unfortunate pattern that leaves one unable to distinguish between scuff marks, dead bugs, and actual tile design. It's a regular Versaille.

Simon and Garfunkel (the new dynamic duo in the loaner laptop room) hear of my plight and tell me it's not their problem. See the IT team on floor B, room 26. Another creepy elevator and hallway later, and the folks in B26 tell me the loaner is indeed busted so go back to Simon and Garfunkel for another. So I do, and they finally agree to give me a working loaner. Up until this point, I'd really been working on keeping my Jesus-like attitude. I still was, but it was quickly changing into more of a Jesus-turning-tables-in-the-temple version.

Back to the first building. The initial IT guy tells me I now have the wrong charger; the new laptop is an HP not an Dell, and using the same charger for both could damage it. I tell him I'll risk it.

45 minutes later, the metro makes it back to my station, and I drive my car home, hitting every red light. If God was trying to teach me something, it must have been related to the durability of a steering wheel and how hard one could grip it before it breaks.

I finally get home, start up the loaner laptop, and follow the IT guy's instructions on how to download the software that is 95% of my job.

That was at 1:30pm. Two days ago. It's still downloading at 37%.

So why am sharing this? Just to vent?

Well, duh. Squirrel's a great listener, but if you have a really great sob story, the internet is the place to be.

But as this is "Pearls from Squirrel" and not "Powder Keg's from Meg"...

I found myself watching Squirrel sleeping peacefully next to me as I tried not to dissolve into tears as the download continued to fail. He had no idea of the stress I was under. No idea how important it was I got this work laptop going right away. No idea how God's kingdom would completely fall apart and fail if I couldn't make this computer issue go away...

...but then again, it wouldn't, would it? This was an annoyance. It wasn't someone's life. It wasn't someone's salvation. It wasn't God's ultimate plan at risk. I had been looking at Squirrel sleeping and thinking, "he doesn't understand." But maybe I was the one who didn't understand.

Life is full of pieces-of-ship laptops and a thousand other kinds of annoyances.

When you have the Peace of Christ, though, you have all you need.