My last post was all about second chances, actually second, second chances to be specific. My days are filled with them. Some are obvious and others I am oblivious to, not realizing the grace I have been granted. However, I don’t want to take any of my second chances for granted or to be unaware that I have received yet another second chance. Being aware of all the different ways God grants me mercy every day, leads me to thankfulness. If I don’t realize the grace I’ve been granted, I fail to appreciate the magnitude (and the kindness) of God’s protection, provision and patience with me on a daily basis. My Heavenly Father’s patience is what allows me all these second chances. I want to remember to thank Him –

“Let them (me) give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for men. Let them (me) sacrifice thank offerings and tell of His works with songs of joy.” (Psalm 107:21-22)

Now some second chances are more dramatic than others. The near miss in traffic or being spared power outages and property damages in last week’s intense storms, as I was, leads me to “give God thanks with a grateful heart” as the song says. Interestingly, I just experienced a very ironic “second chance” shortly after completing the previous post – “second, second chances.” You can’t make this stuff up.

A few hours after publishing the post, I closed a tab from my “mtothe5th” site on another computer and somehow the “second, second chances” post was deleted except for the first paragraph! I couldn’t believe it. One thousand plus words had just vanished! I was panicked. I checked and rechecked, but the post was now just one paragraph long. All that time and effort gone. Gone where? To the cloud? Had technology stolen the very personal sharing of my heart and life experience?

You should know the backstory on this, dear readers. Technology and I are not on the best of terms. We have a love/hate relationship. I can’t decide whether she is a friend or a foe. She has played the role of both in my life. Still, I often feel that technology hates me without reason. I don’t hate her, but I don’t trust her either. Technology is so fickle and unpredictable. Just when I think I’ve got her figured out, she goes and does something like this. She steals what I labored over for so long. My post had literally disappeared from my blog and from cyberspace. I couldn’t retrieve it no matter what keys I hit on the keyboard.

If technology had stashed my post in the cloud, I have no idea where this elusive cloud resides, nor do I have the keys to gain access to all that the cloud hoards within her mysterious vastness. I thought all was lost. Until I found a way to a second chance. It occurred to me that my post had already gone out a few hours prior and that there were those who would have received it via email. Would their emails have disappeared also? I called a friend to find out the answer to this very important question.

Enter my second chance! My friend had received the email and it did contain the full text of my vanished post. However, technology would not let her forward this email to me. I guess technology was not giving up my post without a fight. BUT – my friend was able to print out her email which contained the full text of my post. I gladly went to her home to pick it up! Now I had in my hands the concrete evidence of my day’s labor. I had not labored in vain!

I now had the opportunity to restore my vanished post to the blog. This was definitely a second chance for this post about, of all things, “second chances”. Hence the irony. The post about second chances that was stolen away from me (or I inadvertently hit some wrong key on the computer) was now returned to me, giving the post its second chance to be published. What remained was for me to retype it into the computer, which I gladly did. My “second, second chances” post was itself getting a second chance! The irony of this is not lost on me, probably because it is off the charts inescapable! And while I totally appreciate the humor in this particular second chance scenario, the initial panic I felt when I thought all was lost, is easily recalled.

My Heavenly Father continues to give me forgiveness and second chances, some are just more obvious or in this case, more ironic, than others. But hopefully each second chance gets my attention, causes me to give thanks and compels me to take advantage of the “do over” and do better. I keep thinking eventually I’ll get some of these repeat opportunities, some of these second chances, right. After all –

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are (I am) not consumed, for His compassions (mercies) never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

“new every morning” – that’s the beauty, the hope and the promise of the second chances God gives to me – they are like His manna and His mercy – they are new every morning!

sincerely, Grace Day