Finally

For the past 2 months, I have been putting on my detective hat, activating every brain cell to try to resolve a problem which has plagued our office IT network. For no reason, network access slowed down tremendously and randomly even through there was hardly any surge in network traffic. Users who are normally polite were complaining about how painful it was to use software and data files on our network, and to make it worse, a large part of everybody's work requires access to the network.

All eyes were upon us, the 3-man IT team of the regional office, perhaps calling to question our competency, and frankly, living under this glare is not something to be envious about. In the last couple of months alone, besides handling user and various operational needs, we have survived an internet link outage, a lightning-induced power failure in our data centre, a failed server upgrade, new application roll-out issues, and various other stress-inducing matters. Until two evenings ago, we were still thinking of what's the next step. In fact, I was ready to throw in the towel and engage the services of external consultants to help troubleshoot this situation. Miraculously, at this precise moment, God intervened, and we managed to identify the cause of the problem conclusively on Tue night, and applied a fix in time to bring this unpleasant episode to a close.

Thank God for the wisdom & patience throughout the whole process. Along the way, our eyes were opened to other potential time bombs and areas that if left unaddressed, would pose even more problems when they snap. Of course I wished that we had nipped this within first couple of attempts some 2 months back, but I am sure God has His way of allowing things to happen and navigating us through those situations so that we are able to learn about other potential risks and issues in the process. I am also persuaded that He is faithful and His provision is always timely. He did not allow us to be stretched beyond our threshold.

Now that the boat has stabilized, I really look forward to a time of renewal and simply resting in Jesus' presence in our annual family camp next week. It was 2 years ago when I attended my first family camp, and that was a turning point in my life. I look forward to what God has to say to me in the coming week.

Glory to God & may God bless you too,

Thomas