Unwanted Circumstances Often Lead to Welcome Discoveries

I have become adept at misplacing things. Though occasionally I’m able to coerce my gray matter into remembering where I left an item, more often than not, my brain refuses to be intimidated. So I have to settle for stumbling across missing objects weeks, or even months, after I “needed” them.

When my father died, my brother and I went to the local monument company and selected a gravestone. In order to include a military plaque, they needed Dad’s honorable discharge paper. I had recently been through all his important documents and was positive I’d seen that one, but we couldn’t find it. The next day, Mike found a form online to request a copy of the paper we needed. We filled it out and mailed it, despite information online indicating a fire may have destroyed records from that year.

Three weeks later, after Mike had returned home to Costa Rica, I stayed a few days in Dad’s house in Xenia to take care of more business. One night, local weather preempted regular TV programs to cover a severe storm. It included a tornado watch until 5 a.m. I had been in that house during the 1974 tornado that took many lives in town, so I am on high alert when I hear the T word.

The house is small with no basement. The only possible safe place is the bathroom. In case the sirens sounded later, I piled pillows and blankets next to the bathtub. If necessary, the dog and I would hunker down in there. Wanting more blankets, I found some in my bedroom closet. As I slid them off the shelf, loose papers slid out with them. They were Dad’s discharge paper and another document I hadn’t been able to find.

When I find something I’ve been looking for, I can usually recall putting it there. However, nearly five years later, I still have no recollection of placing them in the closet or why I would have separated them from all the other important papers. I was grateful for the unwelcome tornado threat—especially when two days later we received word that Dad’s records had indeed been destroyed!

Last year, when CW and I were heavy into our shelter-in-place decluttering, I found an electric skillet on a shelf of kitchen items in the basement. It had been Mom’s and looked like new. I’d never used it, but I wanted to keep it. I never know when my 40 plus-year-old stove might suddenly die. The problem, though, was a missing cord.

I looked in the kitchen drawers where I would keep such things, but didn’t see it. I searched through boxes of kitchen supplies I’d moved to the basement because they weren’t being used in the kitchen. Not there. The skillet joined a holding area for our growing collection of household products missing parts.

One morning several months later, I found all the contents of my silverware drawer on the kitchen counter. The drawer was missing. I’d heard of stealing silverware, but stealing a silverware drawer was a new one. The “thief” turned out to be CW. He said the bottom had come loose so he’d glued it and taken it downstairs to dry.

It seemed like a good time to wash everything. I’ve never figured out how the utensil trays get so dirty when the drawers are closed 99% of their lives. But washing them reacquaints me with their contents. I found the jiggly thing from a pressure cooker that was in the holding area. CW had blogged about not being able to find that in “It’s Already Happening!” (Sadly, the cooker remains in holding, awaiting a missing rubber sealing ring we’re pretty sure we threw away in a pitching frenzy.)

With the top drawer gone, I had a clearer view into the drawer beneath. When I pulled it out a little, I could see everything in the very back—including the missing skillet cord! It was snuggling with the salad servers that had hidden it from me. I reunited it with its skillet and moved them from holding to a clean shelf in the basement. No, I haven’t used the skillet yet, but I can—and only because the kitchen drawer broke.

The tornado scare and broken drawer are minor examples of unwanted circumstances leading to something good. More seriously, forty years ago life unexpectedly dumped me into a situation that I did not choose or want. I was suddenly living alone for the first time. No family, no roommates. Just me trying to navigate the terrain of my shaken world.

I remember making two specific discoveries during that time. One was that people like me for who I am. It was a real Sally Field experience. I was no longer living as part of a family, a group, or a couple. Everywhere I went, whatever I did, I was by myself. I remember being astonished that people still talked with me. It wasn’t until then I realized that somewhere deep inside I had thought people only liked me because of whom I was with. But now they seemed to enjoy my company and what I had to contribute to the conversation or the activity. It was a revelation to me. It was much bigger than just social acceptance, though. God was showing me I am important to Him as an individual. My value to Him does not depend on whom I’m related to or what group I’m a part of. And that connects to my other discovery.

I saw definitively that my relationship with God was real. Not that I had doubted it before. In fact, sometimes following God had caused me to swim against the tide. But our relationship was magnified during that time. What a person does during his alone time says something, and my days and nights alone were largely spent with Jesus. I could see that I wasn’t living my life a certain way to please anyone other than God.

These two realizations occurred because I was in a situation I hadn’t asked for and I didn’t want. It’s in difficult circumstances that God can reveal to us who we are.

Gideon was an Israelite who lived during the time of the judges, those individuals God raised up to fight Israel’s enemies and lead His straying people back to Him. God chose Gideon as the next judge. He appeared to Gideon as he threshed wheat in his winepress, where he was hiding so the Midianites who raided their land would not steal his grain.

When the Lord called Gideon a mighty warrior and said He was sending him to save Israel, Gideon responded with reasons he was not the man for the job. Though he did obey the Lord, his fears and doubts persisted. We see that as he waited for cover of darkness to carry out a job because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople (Judges 6:27). And we see it as he sheepishly asked the Lord for signs of reassurance (Judges 6:36-40).

Gideon went on to conquer the Midianites with only 300 men against 135,000 (Judges 8:4, 10). God knew all along Gideon was a mighty warrior. By the end of the battle, Gideon had discovered it, too.

God uses “problem” situations for good. They aren’t problems to Him. I’m learning to embrace them as opportunities to grow, whether it’s developing patience or keeping my eyes open to what God wants to reveal. I may discover cool things about Him or myself . . .

or find my misplaced needle nose pliers.

Feature photo by RENE RAUSCHENBERGER from Pixabay

Image of Gideon from Moody Publishers at www.freebibleimages.org