Technology, Oh Technology

Thirty years doesn't seem all that long ago, but in the computer world, it's forever. I arrived at Northwestern College in the fall of 1973 with one phone for the entire hall. To stay in touch with my family in Wisconsin, I would call (collect of course) and tie up the one phone for a while or my other option was to write a letter. Now each one of my children has their own phone, which is annoying sometimes, because all their calls come on that phone and you don't know who is calling them and it's harder to be overly involved in their lives that way.

A few weeks ago, I was definitely having a love-hate relationship with technology. I was trying to set up this blog site and nothing worked right. I would put something in and thought it should look a certain way, but it did not look like that at all. I would try and retry and retry again and it was always wrong. And let me just say the "help" sites are more helpLESS than helpFUL. I was looking at the entire venture as a way to ward off dementia or Alzheimer's because I definitely was using my brain cells. But then things started to make sense and every time something showed up the way I wanted to, I felt like I rejoicing in my victories.

At this point, I have to say I'm pretty excited about technology. I have found blog sites for other women who love God and love their families and it fills my heart with joy to see people using computers and the world wide web to proclaim this. I can listen to the same message Carissa heard in church even though I live in Iowa and she lives in Chicago. I love Facebook, I can find out what is going on in friends' lives and make a comment on a picture they have posted or send a message. I enjoy having entire conversations with Carissa by text messaging, even though I'm still slow.

Computers and all that go with them are a tool, they can be used for evil and they can be used for good. Once something is on the internet, it's open to anyone. My prayer is that if someone is googling for something evil, something good will show up instead.