Most of us cringe at the thought of having to call tech support for our computers or technological devices. Unless you are an IT genius like my friend Jorge or you are naturally talented like my son Walter and can build or fix anything that plugs in for power, getting those devices to function properly is a mystery.

We recently had trouble with our cable modem (I can already hear the collective groan from readers) and I had no choice but to call tech support. Three nights in a row I dialed the same number, waded through the automated choices pressing numbers (what other country routinely asks if you want to speak in the native tongue?) until I finally got to a live person. Usually there is an immediate language barrier since the call center is in Singapore or the Philippines or India or Uzbekistan or the most common country of Weprobablywon’tbeabletohelpyouStan.

The first night I spent 1 ½ hours on the phone with a nice young man named Steve. He sounded like he was in well – I kept expecting him to say “Do you want fries with that?” and did his best but after remoting in and resetting the network and password and the timer on my kitchen stove still no WIFI. He finally suggested that we didn’t have WIFI service on our account, apparently it had miraculously disappeared.

The next day I spoke with a man whose name I cannot remember but who was so condescending and impertinent that it was all I could do not to crawl through the phone lines to give him a good dressing down in person. He explained in a tone that you would use with a 3 year old that their s e r v I c e s c o s t M O N E Y and we needed to purchase – again – WIFI. Which we did. He promised our WIFI would be working when we arrived home that evening. Which it wasn’t.

That’s night when I called tech support I was connected with an angel. Her name was Gabriel, and when I commented on her lovely name that was from the Bible she asked, “Oh, do you read the Bible?” “Yes I do,” I replied. From there we had the most delightful conversation about our Christian faith. She was a believer, so was her mom, and I sent up a silent prayer to God for giving me a fellow Christian to help me that night. Not only was she friendly and polite, but she was extremely competent. She diagnosed the problem, even got the WIFI working temporarily until she could schedule a technician to come out and replace the hardware. Which she did, giving me a confirmation number and reminding me twice not to miss the pre-visit phone call or the tech might not show up. While we were talking the WIFI went down but I didn’t even care at that point. Finally I had someone who knew what they were doing, who listened to my suggestion that perhaps the unit was bad, and had made an appointment to have it fixed.

The appointment for the repair was scheduled for 2 days later. However, the morning after the phone call I glanced into my office at home to see the WIFI lights happily lit up, a lovely shade of blue. Sure enough we had WIFI as I checked laptop, smartphone, tablet and printer. I suspect the angel Gabriel called in a little divine assistance. I guess I’ll have to wait until we are both in heaven to thank her in person.