Hiding In the Dark

It happened AGAIN!

A few months ago I wrote about losing my purse. For hours I had searched and searched and searched all over my house. I knew it was here but somehow it wasn’t to be found. Unfortunately my cell phone was in my pocket and not in its usual pouch in my purse, otherwise I could have called myself and the annoying ring would have led me right to it. Instead, I searched all morning, everywhere. Finally, I saw my leather burgundy purse on my leather burgundy couch. It was there all the time—blending in—hiding in plain sight as they say.

Well, yesterday I lost my Internet browser. Seriously. The Google Chrome icon showed that the application was open on my computer but there was no page visible. How is that possible? I went through all the scenarios in my mind. Did I need to uninstall and reinstall the application? Tried that several times. Did I need to upgrade my operating system? No upgrades available. Then resorting to the Dummies’-way-of-fixing-all-things-electronic, I turned off and on my computer several times. Nothing. The browser was just gone. Then naturally I emailed the son who works on the Internet and asked for his suggestions. He was stumped, too, so I knew I was really in trouble.

It’s not like I couldn’t use another browser. I could, but that browser had all of my bookmarks and browser history that I needed for school, for this blog, for references I need in work. I could have found them all again, but I didn’t want to. I wanted my browser back!

Eventually I realized this was perhaps a satanic attack since he lives in computers, church sound systems, and of course the Internet…so I prayed. I felt silly praying for a stupid Internet app, but I was down to my last resort…spending hours relocating and saving all of my bookmarks on another browser. Then in the middle of dinner (after which I had planned to go to bed and sleep off my frustration) it dawned on me. A while back I had hooked up a small TV to my computer to act as a secondary monitor. It comes in handy when I’m working on several things at once. I hadn’t used the monitor in a while—it sits dark on my desk, so I didn’t think to look there. Was it possible that somehow I had swiped the browser page a little too far to my right and it had taken up residence on that dark TV/monitor? Yep. I turned on the TV, changed the input, and there it was, my open browser start up page…where it had been all the time. Unlike the purse episode, it wasn’t in plain sight but it was right where I had left it. Right there—but hiding in the dark.

Anybody wondering what all your hard work has come to?  Anybody so frustrated with a search for answers that you want to quit?

I like what Pastor John Piper said: “Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don’t. You are in good company… You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope.”