A Miracle Resurrection Testimony!

"Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" Acts. 26:8

Once again, rather than sharing a profound devotional thought or reading, I'm going to share a testimony!

The past several days I've been weighted down with a huge burden. As many of you know, most of my work with ARME and the Prayer ministry is done on the computer, and as a result, I have accumulated a LOT of files over the last 4-5 years. These files take up a lot of hard drive space….several Terabytes worth of space, in fact.

Well, as my last computer was about to die this past year, I loaded up all my most recent crucial files and pictures and ministry projects on to an external hard drive. (About 450 GB's worth of stuff!)

Thankfully, this Spring God provided me with a new computer. However, I've been pretty busy, and I never made time to put these files on my new computer, or to back them up on a second hard drive. (I just kept carrying around this external hard drive, and using my files from off the hard drive.) 

Well,  this past Thursday, that hard drive crashed! And with it, I lost (or so I thought) many of my key files and projects from the past 4-5 years, since ARME began. As you can imagine, I was most distraught. And I began praying passionately that God would resurrect my hard drive. Not only had I lost most of my important ministry files, but I'd also lost most of my pictures from this past year…which included our ARME trip to the United Kingdom and Wales, and my prayer ministry trip to Germany. (And I had gotten to travel around quite a bit in Germany with Raluca, visiting the trail of Martin Luther, so these pictures were irreplaceable!)

So for the last three days (minus Sabbath) we have done everything we could (and even with expert help) to restore the hard drive and to retrieve my files, but with no success. I kept praying! As I've done some more research I've realized there is still hope if I send the hard drive away to experts, or if I try to download a program that would help. But all these options cost money, a lot of money, and more money than I want to spend. 

So I kept praying, reminding God that first, He's raised the dead to life, so He can surely raise my hard drive back to life. Secondly, my money is His money, and I know He doesn't like His money wasted, so if He doesn't want me to waste His money, He needs to do the "healing work" Himself, so I don't have to pay a worldly wise-man to do the job!

This morning I spent two hours out walking around my trail, praying and crying. I finally told God, "It's ok. You can have my hard drive. If this helps me be more dependent on you, it's ok. I don't need all those files. BUT…if you feel that those files would help me be more effective in your service, I know you can bring them back, either by yourself or with a professional's help, and I'm just going to praise you in advance. Because I know whatever you do will be best." 

After I got back from the walk, my mom and I tried again to get the computer to read the hard drive, but no success. Then after lunch, I attempted to get the hard drive to load on my computer, but still to no avail. Then I looked online, and decided, even though I didn't really have the funds to pay for the program, and I didn't think it was a good use of God's money, I'd try a "recovery" program and see if it would work. So I filled out all the online form, put in my payment info, and right before I clicked "submit payment," I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to go back ONE MORE TIME and try to open my hard drive files. 

I clicked, and suddenly, everything was there…I almost was in shock as I was able to view all my folders, my pictures, and my ARME files, and quickly, with tears clouding my eyes, I began downloading all the files to my computer!!!

It took THREE HOURS, and I probably cried half the time in thanksgiving and gratitude, but with God's help, I was able to rescue and save ALL my lost files!!!!!!!!!!! (You can believe I will have them all double backed up from here on out!)

Most of us view things that die as being dead. How could God possibly bring something back to life! But He can…In Acts we are told:

"Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" Acts. 26:8

This shouldn't be incredible. This should just be normal life!!! Yes, God can raise dead people to life, and if He can do that, He can raise dead computers, dead hard drives, and dead hearts! I just praise the Lord! Once again, He has come through for me, right at the last minute, right when I was seconds away from spending money I shouldn't have been spending for earthly wisdom and solutions!!!! 

I just want to praise God for hearing and answering this prayer!!!!