Reminders Not to Take Even Small Things for Granted

Almost everyone from time to time takes things for granted. I try very hard not to do this, but occasionally, I do the same thing. As often as not, when I take things for granted, even if they are the little things, I’m given a wake-up call and a reminder to be more appreciative.

That is exactly what happened to me beginning on October 8. As normal, I got up between 4-5 am, got my coffee, and sat down at the computer. There was no Internet connection. Since I spent many years as a computer technical engineer, I began the routine troubleshooting steps.

I power-cycled the modem, disconnected and reconnected all cables, restarted the computer, cleared my DNS cache, and so forth. I finally got online, but periodically throughout the day, the Internet signal was lost. After a few minutes, it would come back online. 

This sometimes happens when we are having bad weather, which we were. I have a high-speed connection through the phone lines, so I figured that there was a problem with the phone lines somewhere and that it would straighten itself out. That is a direct violation of one of the biggest rules in tech support; never assume anything.

I fully expected to have more than normal emails on October 9 because that was my birthday, but I figured that the Internet would be up by then so I wouldn’t get too far behind. It was worse on October 9 than it had been the day before. Although I’d spent a lot of years as a technician and engineer, like most people, I really didn’t want to call tech support. I did so anyway.

Thankfully, the tech didn’t have me repeat steps I’d already done. He tried several things on his end and said that he was able to communicate with my modem, well enough to know that it was operating properly. I was able to get back online. A few hours later, it dropped out again.

Like so many people, I’m way too reliant on the Internet, however, I refused to let it frustrate me a great deal. That is actually something I’ve been working on. A couple of years ago, I would have been nearly ballistic by that point, but I’ve gradually learned to give my frustrations up to God and let Him deal with it. So I felt inconvenienced but not angry.

On October 10, I prayed again, but this time I was specific, asking God to do something so I could get back online. It might sound like something silly to pray for, but the bible clearly says to bring everything to God in prayer. It doesn’t say some things or only the big things, it says everything. So I prayed.

Then I called tech support again; the third time in two days. That time, I spoke with a senior technician. He said that the signal to the house was strong, but between the outside of the house and the modem, it became extremely weak. The most likely culprit; the DSL line that goes from the phone jack to the modem. So, he’s sending a new cable. In the meantime, he decided to try something that is highly irregular and that many techs wouldn’t have thought of. He said it just came to him. He substantially dropped my Internet connection speed. This has nothing to do with signal strength, but voila! I’ve been back online ever since, though this is a temporary fix. Less than a half-hour after I prayed, my Internet was restored, by a means that shouldn’t have made much difference.

I got a double reminder. I’d been taking the connection for granted and initially, I tried to fix it myself rather than immediately going to God in prayer. Will something similar happen in the future? Probably. It seems that I continually need to be reminded.