Two weeks ago, all the websites I manage (my book reviews website, Mom’s blog, and this blog) went down at the same time. Our web host was hacked and all their servers were wiped. That meant that it took a good week for our websites to come back online, and during that time, I really didn’t know whether to even hope for them to come back, or whether I’d have to rebuild them all again.
It was a test of faith, and honestly, I didn’t do very well at it.
Praise the Lord, we did get the websites back, and the backup our host had was two months old, so between the three websites, we didn’t lose a lot of posts. A little work was lost, but nothing like it could have been. I’m so grateful. Especially since I know that some people still haven’t recovered their websites, and it looks like at this point they likely won’t. I’m sorry for them, but what can we do?
It’s been interesting to see people’s responses to the problem—including my own! Some people were very angry, to the point of threatening lawsuits the longer the downtime lasted, others tried to encourage being patient with the company, and others tried to give helpful advice or resources to people who were feeling stuck. I found myself waffling between disappointed questions (“How could this have happened?”), searching questions (“Lord, can you please make sure we don’t lose it all?”), and too many what-ifs to count. This event brought together a scattered community of sorts—everyone was in the same boat, asking the same questions, and we had to support each other and wait to see what the news was as it all unfolded.
In retrospect, there isn’t a lot I could have done to prevent this from happening. My main takeaway from the event is to make sure I back up our websites at least once a month, so even if something does go terribly wrong, at least we won’t have lost too much! And if you run a website, I’d encourage you to do the same—make sure you have your own copy of your website somewhere besides just a backup on your hosts’ servers! After the servers were wiped, my backups weren’t there anymore, and even if they are supposed to be there, I still have no way to access them.
Our God is gracious, and it’s all worked out alright, despite my worries to the contrary. He is good!
How have you seen the Lord stepping in to help in your life lately?
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