Throughout my career, I faced many challenges. Thanks to God (I mean it!), I succeeded more than I failed. A lot more, actually. Even when I failed, there was a lesson to learn, something good to get from the experience.

I still remember one of the toughest challenges I faced, probably the toughest one. It was certainly the one I most prayed about.

My manager explained to me that my colleague, who worked at this customer’s project for months, had a personal commitment on the weekend they were scheduled to go live with their new site. So she needed me to cover for him during that weekend.

So far, no big deal, I was used to that kind of assignment. Then she explained they had several critical problems, mostly severe performance issues, and they weren’t able to solve all of them yet.

Back then, I was the rookie in the team and I didn’t have much experience with the products my team supported. And I had zero experience handling performance problems. Not only that, I didn’t know the customer’s environment or what they worked on during the project.

I tried to explain that to my manager, but she said that I was the only one available for that weekend (which also meant that I had no one to help me). I wasn’t trying to avoid the assignment. I simply knew that I wasn’t prepared for it at all. And having just a few hours of warning, I wouldn’t have time to get prepared.

There was no discussion. I had to go.

I arrived there (this customer was in Rio de Janeiro) on Saturday morning. We had a planning meeting, I tried to gather as much information as I could, but as things were being revealed, my internal panic only increased, as it became more and more clear I could never pull this through.

After the meeting, I went to the bathroom and I prayed really hard. I didn’t even know to ask for, so I just asked for help.

A few minutes later, my cellphone rang. It was my colleague, the one whom I was covering for. He said that he had a couple of free hours, and he was going there to give me a few pointers. He lived in Rio, so it would be a quick drive for him.

That was the first part of the miracle. He explained the project to me, including details about the environment, the problems they had faced so far, what I should keep an eye on. He even showed me how to use the analytics tool to watch the performance of the site (I had never even seen that tool before).

If it weren’t for his quick visit, I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done.

The second part of the miracle was that Saturday went with no issues. That gave me more time to learn and explore. And pray.

When I arrived at the customer on Sunday morning, they told me the software crashed during the night. I had never analyzed crashes before. So I spent most of Sunday trying to figure out how to do it.

Another miracle was that I was able to keep my cool and be professional, and do my best.

At about 10pm, as I was leaving for the night (I had already turned off my notebook), the customer came and told me they started having a performance problem. But as soon as I got back and we started doing tests, the problem was gone. The customer was disappointed, but I confess I was relieved.

I decided to stay, check the servers’ log files and keep an eye at the site a little longer. The problem didn’t occur again that night. I left at almost 1am. I didn’t remember feeling so exhausted, not even in other previous situations when I had to stay at the customer’s site for more than 24 hours straight.

When I woke in the morning, I was relieved that the weekend was over and that it was the last day I was scheduled to be at the customer. And even if there were problems, it would be much easier to get help during business hours.

And problems we had. As soon as I arrived, there was chaos already. Due to the higher traffic, the servers were constantly hanging and crashing.

I was able to contact the most experienced member of my team, and he spent the whole day instructing me on what to do. He helped me tune the environment and solve some of the most severe problems.

It seemed that that day would never end. But it did. My colleague whom I was covering for was going to return the following day. He was much more experienced than I was, so I was confident (and relieved) in leaving.

Now, looking back at that experience, I realize that I learned more in that weekend than in any other training I had. Shortly after, I had other opportunities to use the knowledge I had acquired, and I eventually taught it to other people too.

I still thank God that He intervened and allowed me to have only as much as I could handle it. And when I couldn’t, he provided me help and turned a nightmare into a fruitful learning experience.

God does that with us in other areas of our lives too. Sometimes things don’t make sense, we think what is going on is unfair, but good will come out of it eventually. We just have to trust Him.