Where Were You When the Y2K Bug Hit?

  

photo credit: https://freesvg.org/vector-illustration-bug-sign-icon

 It was midnight, December 29th, 1999. 

   I was in an auditorium with hundreds of singing teenagers. 

   For months, the rumors had been growing, books had been written, radio talk show hosts had given interviews, and many intelligent people seemed genuinely concerned that when the clocks on computers around the world switched from 1999 to 2000, the computers could all simultaneously crash, and the world as we knew it would change drastically, perhaps catastrophically.  

    My parents sent my sister and I to the CSBC State Youth Conference anyway. 

    The SYC is an annual 3-day event featuring live worship, gifted Christian speakers and preachers, discipleship classes, and an overwhelming amount of hideously loud music. 

    When the countdown was over, the year was 2000- and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened. 

    Hundreds of over-tired, mildly disappointed teenagers returned to their hotel rooms, hopefully to sleep, and not to irritate their exhausted chaperones too much.

   Though the Y2K bug ended up having zero effect on my life (thanks to many hardworking, very smart techie-type people), I made a decision at that conference that still affects me to this day. 

     To be clear, this is not my salvation story. 

     I had become a Christian at 6 years old and been baptized at 7.  

By New Years Eve of 1999, I was 16 years old and halfway through my Junior year of high-school. I knew Jesus as my savior and I knew I trusted Him, but at that conference I felt a burden in my heart to commit my life to Him, whatever that might look like. 

Did He want me to sell everything I had and become a missionary? I would do it. From that point forward, I would try to live my life in such a way that Christ really was the literal King of my life.             I told Jesus I was willing to give Him everything I had: time, talents, energy, money, day to day habits- everything- and that I would be willing to die if necessary, in service to Him.

    I wasn’t sure what would happen to me after I surrendered to the Lord, but for some reason, He did not want me to literally die, at least not yet. 

    And even stranger, He never did call me to full-time vocational mission work, though I told Him multiples times that I was willing. 

    Both my husband and I are constantly ready to uproot our family, leave everything behind, and GO if Jesus says the word, but Jesus, for now, has called us to stay where we are. 

    As best we can tell, we are called to be "Missions Mobilizers," Christians who love evangelism and missionaries, and who commit to pray for and support field missionaries from their home churches.  

What Jesus has wanted from me has been to live for Him, while still dying daily to my own selfish desires. (Luke 9:23) Among other things, I do know that Jesus wants me to: 

                *Forgive people I don't want to forgive

                *Submit to my husband when I'd rather pitch a fit

                *Live at peace with people I'd rather fight with or leave

                *Give generously to missions and Christ-Centered loving causes

                *Pray (especially when I have no earthly hope of my prayers being answered)

                *Love my neighbors as myself 

                *Share the Gospel with children and youth

                *Disciple children and youth

                *Continue loving and supporting our local church, Mt. View Baptist Church of Lake Isabella. 

          The Y2K Bug may have had no impact on my life, but my commitment to following Christ wherever He leads, and to living a daily life of submission to Him has changed everything. 

    

Where were you when the Y2K Bug hit?