To Be Aware Is to Be Alive Part One: The Misdiagnosis No Medical Degree. Just Questions

I had a plan.

Actually, I had several.

Plan A failed.
Plan B required parts.
And somewhere around Plan C, somebody apparently needed prior authorization.

All I wanted was for my laptop to work.

That’s it.

Nothing dramatic.

But somehow, basic troubleshooting turned into a full-blown medical emergency.

There were tests. Replacement parts. Second opinions.

And absolutely no medical degree involved.

At first, I thought the hard drive was the problem.

In my mind, that’s part of the computer’s brain, and the brain wasn’t responding.

Fortunately, I had already purchased a bootable Windows flash drive.

Or, as I call it:

The Laptop Defibrillator.

Plug it in.

Power up.

CLEAR!

Nothing.

No miraculous recovery. No Windows. No applause.

Somewhere in my imagination, I heard:

“We’re losing her!”

Now hold on.

I don’t have a medical license. I don’t have a computer certification. And I still don’t know which part of this laptop qualifies as the cerebellum.

But that’s my patient, and we’re not unplugging anything until I get a second opinion.

Apparently, somewhere along the way, I had become the Patient Advocate.

And honestly?

That role I understood.

Because advocacy isn’t pretending you know everything.

Sometimes it’s simply knowing enough to say:

“Wait. Something about this doesn’t make sense.”

Faith can look like that too.

Faith is not always having the answer.

Sometimes faith is refusing to accept that the first answer must be the final one.

Sometimes it’s knowing that if God gave you an assignment, one failed plan does not mean the purpose has failed.

It may simply mean:

Pay attention. Ask another question. Look again.

So I did.

I tried different drives. I researched. I tested. I bought parts. I changed the diagnosis more than once.

And after investing nearly $150 in tests, equipment, and one second opinion after another, I finally discovered something.

Maybe the brain wasn’t dead.

Maybe the heart wasn’t failing.

Maybe the patient was perfectly capable of functioning.

Maybe the problem was the connection.

One tiny ribbon cable.

And that’s when this computer story started sounding a little too much like life.

Because how many times have we mistaken a broken connection for a broken purpose?

How many times have we decided something was dead simply because it stopped responding?

How many times have we taken a delay as a denial?

And how many times have we worked on the heart, shocked the brain, changed the plan, and almost given up…

only to discover:

We’ve Been Treating the Wrong Organ.

Maybe God wasn’t saying no.

Maybe the purpose wasn’t dead.

Maybe the promise hadn’t disappeared.

Maybe I needed to stop asking God to bless the diagnosis I had already made and become aware of what He was trying to show me.

That’s the thing about faith.

You can believe God has you and still become frustrated when the plan doesn’t unfold the way you expected.

You can trust His purpose and still misunderstand His process.

But when you remain aware, you leave room for God to correct the diagnosis without allowing disappointment to cancel the assignment.

I never gave up.

Not because I knew exactly how this patient would recover, but because I believed there was still a reason to keep asking questions.

Well.

It looks like my patient needed a second opinion.

And this Patient Advocate?

I wasn’t done asking questions.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Tomorrow: Part Two, Check Your Benefits

Because sometimes the heart is right.

The mind is right.

The purpose is right.

You just need enough faith to keep going and enough awareness to check the connection.

And maybe that’s the lesson:

To Be Aware Is to Be Alive.