Thwarted!

I was having a nice phone chat with my daughter, when I became aware of my husband saying something, and gesturing toward the computer screen. He had just gotten off the phone discussing building a chicken pen with our son, so I figured he was trying to look up something about chickens.  I waved him off as I finished our conversation.

"What's wrong?" I demanded at Howard's cross look as he pointed to the computer.  Then I looked closer, to read: "Security Alert!  Your computer security has been compromised!  Call this number immediately for help!" The screen was covered with little boxes with alarming warnings.  We turned off the computer, and guess what! When we turned it back on the messages were still there! We couldn't get rid of them nor open our computer!

I called our computer guru, and he asked if we had responded in any way.  When we said no, he said to bring it in to the shop, maybe it wasn't too late. Howard took it there immediately, saying, "This is gonna cost us!"  He was gone about three hours, having waited for the work to be done.  I was glad to see a look of relief on his face.

"He fixed it," my husband announced wearily.  "It had been hacked.  He said these things are going on constantly.  If we had answered their message, we would have lost all security."  Howard said they would have had access to bank accounts, social security numbers, Facebook, and anything else we had on our computer.

"He told me our computer was about out of space (I knew this, for I had read an alert recently).  He said we had maybe a month's worth of storage left," Howard went on.  Our computer is about eight years old, so I knew it had to be pretty full.  "He increased the storage for us by 16 gigabytes," my husband said.

Wow!  All that?  And at a very reasonable price!  Thank you, Lord!  I thought of the saying, "The devil meant it for evil, but God used it for good."  He certainly did!  Our computer had needed service for a long time, and to think I have more space for pictures, and a cleaned-up computer!  The criminal, devil-inspired, mind behind the thievery was foiled for us!

The quote comes from Joseph when he says about his brother's having sold him, "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive," Genesis 50:20.

Our need wasn't that huge, but I'm thankful God cares about the things that are important to us!  I  had lost my favorite lipstick.  I checked the car, under the seats and on the floor, as well as emptying my purse and checking bedroom and bathroom.  I would have bought another one yesterday, but I was too tired to go to the cosmetic section after shopping.  Then today, as I picked up a comb after a shampoo, I see it lying on a bathroom counter!  

I was in the mood for my short-cut version of Eggs Benedict this morning. I put the egg on to poach, put the English muffin in the toaster, and reached for cheese on the fridge shelf.  It was nowhere! I searched and searched. "Howard, are we out of cheese?" I questioned.  He didn't know, so I finally closed the refrigerator door, opening it again a few minutes later for something, and the cheese fell out into my hand!  Just little reminders that God cares for us!