Wednesday's Word

A Promise to Hold on to!

“Fear not, for I am with you: Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

Welcome to Wednesday’s Word and our Coffee Hour! He never ceases to give me something to write about, some way in which He showed up in my life in a way that I must share with others. Oh, how I hope this one helps you tie a knot in your Strand of Faith. Come with me to the largest-attended deposition of my almost 27-year career as a court reporter!

I walked into the conference room almost an hour early expecting to see no one but perhaps the videographer. WRONG! There were several people already there, much to my surprise, as I was thinking there were only going to be one or two attorneys, and that my biggest challenge was going to be getting the six checked in telephonically, something I had never done before. 

But as the room began filling up, I realized I had assumed incorrectly…isn’t that usually the case! ☺ Let’s pause here for a second so I can give you a couple other details.

Now I had gotten prayed up for this deposition, especially after printing the caption the night before and seeing the 30+ case numbers attached to the “lead case” number. As panic knocked on the door of my heart, I shooed it away with the assurance that my God wouldn’t allow me to go to something He wouldn’t bring me through. In my almost 27 years of court reporting, I think the biggest attorney party I’ve ever had to report was seven or eight, nothing larger than that; however, one time in court I reported a high-profile case and the room was filled with attorneys but the judge always made them say who they were and who they represented before saying anything! That is the key: we have to paint a verbatim picture with words and the words have to belong to someone! In other words, every person who speaks must be identified. Now, with that in mind, let’s return to this room that is quickly filling up as I’m checking people in on the telephone!

I stopped dead in my tracks as I counted how many were already in the room; five plus the video guy. Okay, I thought to myself, everyone is just wanting to be early and get a good seat for the show! Well, within five minutes, that theory was blown straight out of the conference room and up into the air. The last attorney to arrive as we started the proceedings numbered 23!

The case material was challenging, but not nearly as challenging as figuring out who was saying what they were saying when they were saying it, so by the time I’d figure it out, the answer was already spilling out of the witness’s mouth and the next question was almost on the table! Talk about playing catch-up or throw up! At one point in the proceedings, the teleconference got lost due to dead batteries in the phone and I remained calm as I went in search of a techy guy and he replaced the batteries and we got up and running again. From that point on I kept my cell phone on my lap, texting one lead attorney every now and then to make sure they were all still hearing the proceedings…in between objections, answers and questions.

See, here’s the cool thing: I truly remained calm in all the chaos. His instruction to me to not be dismayed, to know He was right there with me holding me up so I wouldn’t give up, throw up and/or walk out is the only explanation I can give because when I went back and began preparing the transcript in rough draft form to send to our client, I had written cleaner than I had in years…had hardly dropped a word!

Our God’s promises are true, my friend. He just says, you first, then Him. What do you need to trust Him for or in today?

Joyfully,

Evinda