When You Can’t Get the #$%^ Printer to Print

I had a document I absolutely had to print. I needed it — like, yesterday. My laptop said, “Printer is offline.” The printer was not offline. The printer was turned on and very happily staring up at me, sitting as calmly as can be with paper ready, green “go” light on.

I swear if a printer could be smug….this printer was smug.

I was ready to throw the ever-living, blasted thing against the cotton-pickin’ wall because I couldn’t get the #$%%^ printer to print.

I have 3 teenagers in my house, and not one of them could fix my printer problem. Seriously?! These children can crack every password we put on our ipads, send 50 texts in an hour, and have never used a rotary dial phone, yet they could not fix their mother’s printer woes? This had a high degree of wrongness.

My husband, who is my techie knight-in-shining-armor, was at work and unavailable.

I was in crisis.

What is the definition of a crisis? A crisis is a situation for which the person perceives he or she does not have the strategies or coping skills to handle the problem.

The painful truth: The problem was not the printer. The problem was me. A crisis is never in the outside situation. The crisis is always what’s going on inside of us.

Yet here is what gives us hope: God is bigger than any problem we face.

The printer is never really the problem, though, is it? That would be easy enough to fix.

Consider what is underneath the feelings of crisis.

If I don’t ________ (get this document printed, get this car fixed, get this child straightened out), then ________.

Then what? What will happen? Will I get fired from my job? Will someone think I am irresponsible? Then what? Will I no longer be a good mom? A good wife? A loyal friend? A good person?

Is it possible this task will not get finished, or not in the time frame I wanted, yet somehow it will still be okay?

My husband came home late that night after a long day and well into the evening of working at church. He fixed my printer issue and printed my document for me after I was asleep. The situation wasn’t what I had planned. Yet here I am weeks later, still standing. A wife, a mom, a friend. A bit wrinkled and tarnished — not perfect, but here.

The printer is still in one piece, by the way. Smug cotton-pickin’ thing.***

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***Enjoy this Tim Hawkins video about Christian cuss words — it’s hysterical!

 

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