Yesterday my computer forgot who I was. In fact I’m not sure it even knew who it was. I tried to log on to the computer in the afternoon and was told that my user profile was corrupted. This meant that I could not access the computer as myself and it would not open up in such a way as to allow me to log on as someone else either.

What followed was not pretty. I will not give you the full gory details but there was some growling, a few frustrated exclamations of, “No!” and plenty of furrowed brow. None of the suggestions on the Internet* seemed to be very helpful or easy. in the end I decided the best thing was time travel.

In Windows speak that is known as a system restore: taking the computer back to a previous saved point in its history where everything works properly following a crash. This process is irreversible so it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I clicked to activate the system restore and with a considerable amount of relief that it worked: eventually. The computer had to reinstall some updates that had taken place in the intervening period but for the most part no harm has been done other than to my stress levels.

Or at least that’s what I thought. this morning when I tried to activate my speech recognition software it told me that the user profile for that piece of software has also been corrupted. This means it has forgotten all of the words that I have taught it and is having to relearn my style of speaking. Because I’m feeling much calmer, there’s only been one gentle “Grrr”.

I’m thrilled that my computer has a system restore process. Without it I might still be gnashing my teeth and the computer might have been reduced to a smouldering pile of plastic and microchips.

I don’t think we have a system restore points as people. We can’t go back in time and pretend that some things have not happened. Instead God offers us fresh starts, wiping the slate clean, looking at us as if we had never done anything wrong if we seek forgiveness through Jesus. Yes there may be some consequences from what we have done that we need to work through with other people. But God’s forgiveness is absolute and limitless. There is nothing that we can say or do that he will not forgive we come back to him. God’s grace is perfect love poured out on imperfect people to bathe us in his perfection.

Bathe away!

Be blessed, be a blessing.

This is an oldie but a goodie:

At a computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: if GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they painted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to re-install the engine.

4. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.

5. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

6. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

7. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50 percent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.

8. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

9. You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.

* those lateral thinkers among you will have realised that accessed it from another computer in the household