There is a God. And He likes me.

I was in the final moments of copyediting a lengthy document when the unthinkable happened: I somehow lost part of the document. Or the computer ate it. Or whatever.

It was bad.

I checked my files again with no luck: the endnotes were gone. And if the endnotes were gone, I had to wonder what else was gone. I considered cutting and pasting the endnotes from the original document, but quickly scrapped that plan. My reputation as a freelance editor depends on accuracy. Every. Single. Time.

I walked away from my computer and said a prayer while I crawled into bed for a nap. Because I’m spiritual that way.

I had been looking forward to a weekend with my family. A few games of UNO, a family movie, maybe some leaf raking if the weather cooperated. Now all of that was in jeopardy. I needed to keep working in order to make my deadline, and all of my fantasies about free time dissolved like the first sort-of snow of the year.

I printed out my edited document, planning to go through the whole thing again and make the changes on the original, just to be safe. And, what do you know, there were the missing endnotes. Maybe the computer hand’t eaten my document after all.
I consulted with Llama Papa, and with a few clicks, my beautiful copyedited document was there. All of it.

A few more changes, and it would be done. And I would be free for the weekend.

My first response? There is a God. And He likes me.

And yet even if the document hadn’t been recovered, I know the same thing is true. Even if I spent my weekend behind a computer screen, it’s true.

It’s easy to lose sight of God’s goodness when life feels hard, but it’s more true than any feelings we have: there is a God. And He loves us.