Computer System Raised from Dead

Early Friday morning, April 23rd, our main computer was struck by lightning and everything that was connected to it was fried! This happened around 3:30 am, after Don had finished some artwork and sent a small version to the client for approval. He had only just laid down when the lightning struck. The sound and light were intense. He leapt up and went to the studio upstairs and when first entering the room he could smell the ozone clearly. He saw that there were no lights on the wireless Internet device or the computer CPU and the large monitor was not working. The little monitor had an error message, the mouse was unresponsive and the keyboard did not work. He tried to reboot several times. Don attempted to restart but without success. He quickly prayed for it to be healed while laying his hand on the CPU. There were still no lights and nothing was happening on the monitors either. Not accepting the bad report, he unplugged and replugged in other outlets. Still nothing.

I came up to pray after I realized what had happened. I prayed for Father to forgive me for any sin that I had done or said and then thanked Him for His mercy. Then our youngest daughter, Erin, and I prayed and commanded the entire system to be healed in the name of Jesus Christ. We continued praying for all to have faith in this and agreed that it was healed.

By daylight, we plugged it in again and tested the system. But nothing had changed for the computer. All was quiet and it remained dark. We understood that this was the time that our faith must be the strongest. We were assessing what may have been lost, including four months of animation work and original art files for several clients. We understood the magnitude of what this would mean if we couldn't get this computer running again. But we rebuked the messages of doubt from the enemy. We tried several times that morning to restart but the result was the same: Dead.

Knowing that clients would be calling soon looking for their art, we called the Mac store to set up an appointment to get our computer checked out for any possibility of recovering ANYTHING from the hard drive. A "Mac Genius" named Bo gave us what news we already knew: "Your MAC is brain dead and we can't talk to it". Bo said they could try to fix it but could not guarantee anything. Replacing the logic board first would cost $766.25. He would order the parts. Then he said we would have to see what else was needed from there. Bo mentioned our homeowner's policy and I remembered that it would only pay after a $1000 deductible but we had not even been able keep the policy up to date. All of this was money we did not have and could not foresee having for some time. Father had put us in a place of weakness. He was ready to prove to us that all these things did not matter and His power would be made great. Don and I took the computer home and prayed again. All the UBM brethren here agreed in prayer that the computer and systems were healed. We continued to work in faith that Father was going to work this out for us.

On Friday night, we came home after praise and worship with our neighbors, Don tried to get my computer to talk to his computer but still got the same error message. God gave Don a desire to sleep and stop messing with it.

On Saturday morning, our daughter, Erin, accidently leaned on the keyboard that was on the floor where she was sitting in our studio. Then Don heard his computer's CPU awaken. Erin lifted her hand and the monitor was awakening as well. Using the F Keys, Erin tested the keyboard and it responded. The bright light of the monitor was displaying the desktop! Then they plugged in a mouse and it worked. So Don asked Erin to plug in more things to see if all the other ports were healed. And sure enough, they too were working! All the files were opening and functional, as was the software. Everything that the Mac Genius confirmed was dead just hours before came back to LIFE!

Don called me upstairs to witness the computer that had been raised from the DEAD. Like Lazarus, our computer was ALIVE again -- and working even BETTER than it was before the lighting strike. After a moment of pure AWE, we cried out with PRAISE TO THE FATHER!

I have never witnessed something like this and we've been into computers since 1990 and have owned more than 15 computers and have been through MANY lightning strikes. As a family, we are strengthened in the faith that our AWESOME Sovereign God is in control of everything. How can we doubt that Father did this to teach us to rely on Him? Our weakness, our inability to take care of this problem, our lack of funds and our need for the information to be RESTORED were designed to allow us to see our Father work this miracle. He loves us and will provide for us. Praise God. (Eph.6:23) Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ... (2:5) even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), (6) and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places , in Christ Jesus: (7) that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus: (8) for by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; (9) not of works, that no man should glory. (10) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.

Printer-friendly version