True Hope and a Future

I confess, I am technologically challenged. To be more accurate, I have poor short-term memory and not enough time (or patience) to learn the same things over and over again.

Technology was not my friend this morning. When we began the Journey Bible Study, there were two of us in charge of the program; one would teach and the other ran around doing everything else. Now in the mornings there's one, me, so even though I was getting ready to teach, I needed to make sure everything else happened as well. I know I can't do it all on my own and, thankfully, God has brought women in who can take the responsibilities in one area or another.

Today, however, the person running the sound board couldn't come in. I was quite impressed that I was able to get a CD to play, especially since I couldn't figure it out just last week. However, I forgot some of the details, or maybe I just didn't have enough time to think of them. First there's the clicker. I'm pretty sure that's not the technical name for it, but it's the thing you click to move from one Power Point screen to the next. The music was starting and I was tearing around the sound booth looking for the clicker. When I finally found it (right in front of my face), I couldn't get it to work. By this time, the ladies were waiting for the words to appear on the screen so they could start singing.

I went with plan B, which is quite remarkable because the old Lisa would've been hung up trying to get plan A to work. Plan B was to use the computer keyboard to manually change each slide. Not a problem, except that I needed the clicker when I stared teaching, which would be immediately after worship. My first thought was to change the batteries. The warning light came on the power pack for the wireless mike, so I needed to change those as well. Keep in mind I'm teathered to the computer, so the only time I could run and look for batteries (two different sizes, of course) was in between hitting the key on the computer to advance the screen, which needed to be done every fifteen seconds or so. Plenty of time!

Hit the key; run to get batteries. Hit the key; figure out how to open the battery compartment. Hit the key; get the batteries out. Hit the key; get the new batteries in. While I sucessfully changed the batteries in the microphone, the clicker still didn't work, even with new batteries. I kept trying to get it to work, between hitting the key and putting the microphone on. No luck.

By the providence of God, this week I had a song I to play immediately after worship and before my teaching. That gave me just over two minutes to figure this out, and now I had someone to help me. "Where's the other piece to this clicker?" she asked. "I didn't know there was another piece," I answered. Obviously I needed help.

Back to plan B (or would that be C?) She would advance the power point while I taught. Not an easy task since there was not an outline for her to follow and she had no idea what I was going to say next. I'm not sure if I was trying to keep up with her or she was trying to keep up with me or both. This was the first time I taught without advancing the Power Point myself, another thing that normally would have thrown me, but miraculously didn't.

Then, while I was teaching, someone in the back row caught my eye. (In school, wasn't it always the kids in the back row causing all the problems?) I could see her mouthing something to me, but, since I was trying to decipher her message and teach at the same time, I wasn't having any success. Finally, I just stopped and asked. Again, this normally would have been enough to thoroughly fluster me, but I picked up where I left off just fine.

On a day like today, the "old Lisa" would have been "freaking out" (to use someone else's terminology.) But today, I just rolled with the punches like it was nothing. That is God in action!

Sidenote: The clicker worked fine once one of the batteries was turned right side up (imagine that!) Oh well, I would've never figured out the missing piece thing anyway. :)