Lessons Learned

So I think I finally reached the outcome of my Dr. Pepper shower in the airport last month. Last weekend my hard drive suddenly disappeared. And, all I could figure out was that the Dr. Pepper had finally wreaked its havoc. Of course, who knows, it might have died anyway, but I'm going to blame it on the Dr. Pepper! :-)

Thankfully there is an Apple service store here in the city. It took me 2 hours of walking around in a giant circle to actually find the store, but it's here, and it honors my warranty! So, after 4 trips to the "teknik servis", and after immense frustration as I tried to communicate computer language in Turkish, the ole' Macbook is working again. It was frustrating because I don't speak computer language in English much less Turkish! Yikes! And the really weird thing was that if I called the shop on the phone, there was an English speaker. But when I was actually in the store, no one spoke English. Now that it's all behind me, though, I guess I could say it was actually an encouraging thing to know that with courage only from God, I was able to work through something really hard and get the results I needed...a fixed computer.

One really good lesson in all of this was the reminder that the grass is not always greener in America. Sometimes I find myself comparing things here to the way things are back home, and when I'm really having a pity party day I tend to think everything in America is better. But, in this case, there was an Apple repair store within 30 minutes of my house. Back home, there isn't one single Apple store in the whole state of Arkansas! :-)

The best lesson I learned, though, was to remember that my joy comes from God, not my circumstances. If I keep my gaze on Him, no matter how frustrating life can be, my joy is eternal. Easier said than done, but completely possible with the Him.