Face forward - even if not moving forward

I had a couple of remarkable incidents this week. The first was replacement adjustment knobs for a K&M microphone boom stand. Our little church has had this stand for years and has taken a lot of abuse. At first, it seemed these knobs wouldn’t be available to purchase. An e-mail to Germany to the manufacturing company changed that. I received four replacement knobs Thursday from the Canadian distributor. A PDF of the exploded parts drawing was also sent for future reference. Sweet. I love that company!

Secondly, I am in school to finish off the last course for a Mechanical Engineering Technology diploma. The instructor from the previous class recommended an award-winning software program aimed at helping newbies like me learn applied loads and stresses and how to graph or plot them. The last 5 weeks have been a reckless stream of confusion trying to understand the math and concepts. Last weekend I was a mess, crying out to God to help me understand and not squander this opportunity He has given me through my work at this time. I use the experience of Daniel and his three friends as a source of inspiration that education can be God-ordained when it’s for His purposes (see Daniel 1: 3-7). God also provides wisdom to those who ask for it (James 1: 5). Anyway, the software was so good at visually showing the concepts, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a student license for the software. But the website wouldn’t accept my PayPal account because of certain purchasing restrictions. What to do?

I contacted the professor who created the software directly by e-mail. I explained the situation and asked him where I could send a cheque. It wasn’t overly expensive for a license, but I prefer to legitimately own any software I have. He responded back with a complimentary license! How wonderful is that?!

And yes, finally, my brain is grasping the math concepts. PTL.