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At about 7:15 this morning, I prayed a very specific prayer. I asked God if I might have a productive two and a half hours before a slew of appointments began. In my mind, this productivity would include trashing a lot of files taking up space on my computer and figuring out how to make my Dragon dictation program work more of the time. Once I did those things, I planned to compose the Friday Fave blog.
You know what’s coming. It seemed that God had a different productivity plan for me. Around 7:30, our youngest son sat down with me at the breakfast table and showed me this wonderful Keynote presentation he had composed on his iPad. Various group members had sent articles, media, statistics, and cartoons to show that happiness level does not depend on material wealth. The presentation was intriguing and beautifully displayed.
But then it disappeared. I must have touched something that closed the file, but the problem was it would not open again. Being the responsible student he is, Robert had saved the file to iCloud, and indeed the copy was there. However, in the maddening manner of the “Imonster,” neither copy would open. As tension escalated, I sent him off to school, promising to research and try to resolve the problem. Two hours and many deep breaths later, the cover photo of the file still beckons, welcoming the viewer, but refusing to deliver.
I have some questions: is this God’s idea of productivity? Is parenting productive? What will be the yield of these two hours? I’ve been a parent long enough to know the answers to these questions. Lost/corrupted-file-experiences have a way of sticking like a bright yellow post-it note in the mind’s eye. People who feverishly labor to help recover those files are agents of hope partnering with us in the search and destroy mission against decay. Let productivity perish; I believe this’ll make a really good story one day
