Life, life, life

So, now that the iMac is virtually new again, I'm able to once more post on my poor neglected blog. Third repair in less than a year - not just any repair... first we had the midplane replaced earlier this year. Then in the beginning of July our house took on a curious acrid smell... like melting plastic. It got worse and worse - chokingly bad. We finally figured out it was coming from the back of the computer. Which is the monitor, on a G5. Which is the problem, I'm beginning to figure out. Took it in, and took those "genuises" over a week to replace a little ol' fan. Then what happens? I take it home and plug it in... within minutes the air is filled with the same - yet somehow worse - smell of burnt plastic, and this time I hear an odd hissing sound... like when something liquid is dripping onto something hot and sizzling. Hmm... need to investigate this. Listen, move around, listen more - discover the sound is coming from the right bottom corner of the monitor. Not only that, but the same area is so hot I almost burn my fingers when I touch it. Bad sign. Turn it off before it explodes... and calmly call Apple the next day, wanting to actually scream at someone in frustration. But I keep my cool, even laugh about it... and tell them to call me when the part gets in, and then I'll take it in to get repaired. Of course, I get a call past 6:30 pm to let me know it's in, Thursday. Did I mention I live almost 2 hours away from the Apple store? Oh, and try getting 3 kids in the car for that ride, in the blaring, glaring hot sun (it's been awesome summer weather for lying by a pool lately - over 80deg. - too bad we don't have a pool to lie out by ;) and then getting back in the car to go back home - 3 times in a week. I don't think so. So we went and dropped it off, but thank goodness for my mom watching the kids for me when I went back to pick it up. It was sooo hot, and of course I wasn't thinking when I put on my black jeans and black Harley tank top that morning... whew! In an ol' '80 Buick Regal, no a/c, and only one working window (other handle broken due to someone's outburst a while back - we won't go there) Thank heavens it was my window that rolled-down. Even still, that traffic... omygosh. My kids would never have lasted. I've filled my gas tank 3 times in the past week it seems.

Anyways, so now the computer has basically had its insides completely replaced. And if anything goes wrong again... well, supposedly we get a new one. Though I'd rather just have this one up and working if it's all the same. :)

And there's other stuff going on too. Stuff I'm not at liberty to talk about, but I just want to say that stress sucks. I have hardly been able to eat or sleep for the last few weeks. My stomach has been in knots constantly... and just trying to get through the day and function has been a task. The kids are doing ok, we're managing and everything alright. I'm leaning so heavily on God right now that if He weren't there I'd literally be on my face in the mud. I don't know where anything is leading to, all I can do is pray for direction and guidance and wisdom. And more than anything, that His perfect Will be accomplished - in my own and my family's life. If you want to pray for me, I would so appreciate it. Things are really hard right now. We will get through, and we will be stronger, but it will take who-knows how long and it's probably going to get harder before it gets easier. All I can do is read the Bible and pray continually and go one day at a time. My heart is totally breaking every day. But God is good. I stand on His promises, and take to heart the verses in Romans that I feel God has given me:

Romans 8:18: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." I know it's talking about martrydom and suffering for Christ, but I believe other sufferings which are out of your control can also be applied here, if you take them to God and use them for His Glory.

8:26 "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." How many times I've just cried, and not even known what to pray... and yet the Spirit prays for me in those times when I cannot even form an intelligible sound, nor a single complete thought. Groanings which cannot be uttered... but you feel them deep within.

8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." This is an oft-quoted verse, for good reason. It does well to remember this; because it doesn't matter how dire or dreadful the circumstances seem - somehow, someway, someday it will turn for our benefit. Even if we could never imagine how.

8:35, 37-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine or nakedness, or peril or sword?...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

15:13 "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."