losing a spreadsheet

My hard drive crashed the other day. Since I've gone lax on my "back up every day" rule, I lost almost a months worth of...trying to be in control and on top of things. One of those things was a spreadsheet on which I keep a log of all of my monthly income and spending. I found an old version of it, but because it is now not up to date, I feel behind. I do not like feeling behind or out of control. K. was praying with me yesterday regarding this and I just sat there, clenched, in my chair, flipping through my mental file box of other things that were probably lost. Half listening at best.

Then later on in the evening, I picked up the book I'm reading on prayer, and read this:

I live in daily hope of getting my life under control. At home I left a desk covered with to-do lists: study the manual for my balky printer, unclog pine needles in the gutter, unstick the toilet, change snow tires, check on my sick neighbor. Maybe if I take a day off, I'll have time...On the mountain one bolt of lightening, splitting a rock on a nearby peak and exploding against my eardrums, exposes any illusion that I am ever in control. I can count on the moment before me, nothing more.

"Let me know how fleeting is my life," prayed one psalmist. A mountain storm thunderously answers that prayer. The priorities of my life crack apart and slide into a new place. (Phillip Yancey)