eAction

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Good news! I’ve mostly recovered from my last computer crash. You may not realize it, but good things come as a result. Just like a summer storm brings flowers and greening after the rain and hail are gone, so any catastrophe brings better things afterwards.

In my case I needed to learn how to do proper backups to CDs in Linux. I thought I had a handle on it, but on Saturday the CD burning process seemed to do nothing but fail. Even after I tried it with three different programs.

When I was ready to give up in tears, I dashed off an email to a Christian Linux Users Group, and went away to cry out to God in tears. After lunch I came back and lo, two members had written to offer advice, and in no time I had a proper backup!

As I was finishing off the day’s dishes, guests arrived at the door unexpectedly. They brought me a shopping bag full of first-class clothes. Thelma wanted me to use them as rags, but examining them around midnight I saw that with some minor adjustments, I’ll be able to add them to my own wardrobe. All the time I had a sense of God providing me these answers and gifts.

Please, when you are in a time of crisis, cry out to God, then watch out for little surprises of goodness coming your way.

What do you do when suddenly realize that a path you have been taking is a wrong path for you? Do you come to an immediate decision, and turn away from it? Or do you ponder and muddle along for a while, weighing the pros and cons?

I suppose it depends on the situation. There are times I can make quick decisions.

This time it involves undoing some business associations. To back out of this relationship will mean going over every web page on at least two sites, to remove links and articles and advertising. I cringe at all the work that is involved. Do I make a sharp clean cut and deal with the mop-up as fast as possible, or shall I let it fade away slowly?

Today I was made aware of a change coming in a program I have promoted. It won’t happen until late October, but I’m thinking, “Why pretend, when I know what my decision will be at that point?” I might redeem the time by quitting now, and using my time more productively in other ways.

Tell you what; when it involves turning away from evil, do it quickly and do it thoroughly, when it is a matter of choosing a better way over a lesser one, take time to do it right, even if it takes longer.

Since I like to pray and think things over before I make a quick, rash decision, I will not tell you about this in detail just yet. However, I have promised to make my experiences an example and lesson for you. You will hear about it soon enough.

Well, I’m more or less back on track. So I can make my announcement that was preempted last time.

Since this is a rather small mailing list (i.e. fairly short list of subscribers), and because only one or two ever send any feedback, I’ve decided to ease my work load in this effort.

Instead of working a morning or two, plus a Thursday evening every two weeks on this ezine, I’m turning it into a blog. In fact, it has already been a blog on my site since February, but now I am just going to spend one hour on Thursday mornings writing whatever helpful, encouraging ideas and advice I can, and let the WordPress software I’ve installed on my site do all the archiving, etc.

This will mean a weekly effort for eAction (the longer name, Encouragement & Action, doesn’t fit onto the header there, so I’ve shortened it), but it will free up another evening for correspondence with those whom I am mentoring.

I’ve been feeling badly about sometimes neglecting their emails for several days, and trying to squeeze them in here and there. They deserve more of my attention, and I ought to make more effort to reach out to those who seem to drop away.

Now my # 1 Fan has problems getting online long enough to read any links I send her, so for a while I will also send this blog material out in this ezine format. But when I see subscribers unsubbing, I’ll let it go and just send this friend a separate email.

It only takes a few minutes to paste it in and send off an ezine, so I won’t shut down the subscribing forms until I see whether anyone bothers to subscribe or is willing to come check out the blog, or - better still, bookmark it into their RSS Feedreader. Then it shows up in that window whenever you click on the title. The latest entries are always just a click away!

I know, not everyone knows about Feed readers yet. They will. This has potential to be as big or bigger than email.

I’ve been doing a series of features on the “seeds” we sow in our lives. It is as we sow or invest our time, our abilities and skills in others, that we start to profit. We begin to harvest multiplied returns on our investment, emotionally, spiritually, and yes, financially.

I’d like to tell you of a scenario that Mike Murdock describes in his book, “34 Reasons People Do Not Receive Their Financial Harvest.”

He says that people do not realize time is THE currency on earth. Mike has never met a poor person who really grasps the importance of time. It is generally the rich who have caught on. He illustrates it with this scenario.

A boss in his big office leans back and sighs, “I sure wish I had a good glass of carrot juice.” This is how various employees react;

1. $5.00 an hour employee: “I’d like to have a glass of carrot juice too!”

2. $6.00 an hour employee: “You like carrot juice. I like cokes myself.”

3. $7.00 an hour employee: “If I had some carrots, I’d make you some.”

4. $8.00 an hour employee: “Would you like for me to find you someone to make you some?”

5. Employee who can decide his own salary: “I’ll be right back, sir, within 20 minutes.” He returns with a glass of carrot juice requesting more information. “Would you like this daily at a specific time? It can happen, sir.”

Much as I’d like to say I am at the fifth level, I confess that sometimes I am more like the third one. I’m willing, but I see myself as not having resources.

There are times I’ve been resourceful and made things happen. Amazing thing is when I know I’m counted on to accomplish something, I always find a way - eventually!

So I’m making a conscious effort to live at the fifth level of response. Just get up and do it. Ways and means will show up while I’m working at solving the problem.

Believe that deep down, and you are bound to get things done, go places, and be honoured and recognized as a special person. Yes, in your business life AND in your personal life, wherever you apply this principle.

Make a list of all the problems and adversities you face.

Pick one as your challenge this week.

Tackle it and look for ways to solve it.

Need someone to be accountable to and give you a pat on the back?
Write me and tell me about it!

Tuesday morning, I opened KWord and pulled up some files on a floppy disk from my old 286 computer downstairs (where I do my devotions). The first one I had converted to RTF and it opened okay, but when I opened the second one, KWord “hung up” or greyed out, and I couldn’t close it or do anything with it. In Windows-lingo, it crashed.

I spent from about 9:30 to 11:30 searching online for how to deal with this. I knew that in a Linux operating system one should NOT shut down and reboot to solve a crash. That’s a Windows’ cure. But I got impatient and decided to shut down and reboot.

Only now I couldn’t get into Mandrake. All seized up! I re-installed my Mandrake suite, but on the empty half of the 40GB drive. When I came back in, I found my cursor missing. I struggled to fix it, but couldn’t get into that area of Mandrake Control, as I couldn’t see where the mouse was clicking.

In the afternoon (sigh!) I re-installed Mandrake again. Still the same problem. I explored the SuSE LIVE! CD (it stays on the CD, not the hard drive), and via SuSE was able to see that my partitions were still all there, so I went to look for answers on the net, with my older computer, using dial-up. I couldn’t find anything really helpful, so in the evening I came back and installed Mandrake again for the 3rd time.

While in the custom partitioning stage I decided to risk a Rescue partition click. My sister-in-law Penny called, and I was talking to her when it stopped and I saw my hard drive wiped clean!

As I moaned and grieved she comforted me by saying it was all just “stuff.” People matter more than our stuff.

I know all that!

What she didn’t know was how many web sites I’ve been working on, how many writing projects, graphics… and not all for just me - clients too.

I still have stuff on the 10 GB drive with Windows, but it’s been locked off to me since Easter. What I’ve lost now, is all the stuff I’d gathered and set up since Easter. I had not been able to figure out how to do backups to CDs, but had been saving everything to a separate partition on this drive. If I had NOT tried that “Rescue Partition” button I would still have it. (SIGH!)

I finished that third install. (I am getting VERY familiar with that routine), and late that night I hunted up manuals and instructions on backups. I was resolved not to do anything else until I had learned how to do backups on CDs. Close to midnight I went to bed, feeling odd. Like I ought to be physically sick. My heart was certainly in mourning.

All day yesterday and most of today I have sought out and managed to learn a steep mountain of information. I can now do backups on a program sitting right here in this suite of over 900 programs. It’s called X-CD-Roast. I also learned a number of commands to use in the Konsole like a real Geek.

I still need to learn more about changing file permissions, but I think it is safe now to try to re-build my “stuff” on this computer. Remembering my move to this computer in November, and my transition into Mandrake only after Easter I realize that it will take a few weeks. All my big blogging plans are on hold.

I’ll be able to download my sites and the ones I look after, so I’ll have copies of them again, but the work I had not uploaded yet… well, I’ll have to do it over.

Same with the kids’ book I’d started on the weekend, and the article I wrote Saturday night for the local weekly paper’s centennial project. A big batch of graphics I had cropped and re-sized, I’ll need to do over. About 80+ tracts that I had scanned for a shopping cart - need to be done over. Never mind all my email addresses.

(Sigh!) Yes, I have been in tears over this. Nevertheless, this morning I saw and claimed a Bible verse and it cheering me up more and more as I re-read it throughout the day today. Let me share it with you in case you need this lovely comfort too.

“The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV).

Can you put aside your pain too, and focus on God delighting and singing over you?

Blessings & Thanks for Reading,
Ruth