Sometimes, Bad Things Happen To Prevent Even Worse Things

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part.’ (Job 42:12a); ‘(2) Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, (3) because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.’ (James 1:2-3)

A few years ago (five to be exact), we went up to Virginia to see our new granddaughter. We wanted to be there for the birth or a day or two after, but in 2020 it was in the midst of COVID lockdowns and restrictions, so we waited until our newest addition came home, and then went up a couple weeks after. Our daughter, who was in college at the time, also wanted to see her new niece, so we picked her up in Gainesville and she accompanied us.

The visit went very well, and our granddaughter was doing great, now that she was ‘out and about’. We didn’t run into any problems during the trip to Virginia as feared. We had prepared for the contingency of closed eateries by packing a cooler full of lunch meat so we could pull into a rest area, go to a picnic table, and make a sandwich (and chips, pickles and things that go with sandwiches). Gas stations were open, as were motels, though most people were not traveling so there was no crowds.

We were gone from home for about a week. We made our way home, dropped our daughter off in Gainesville, and drove down a relatively empty I-75 back to southwest Florida. Pulling into the driveway, all looked good and I went about the business of turning our well pumps and water heater back on, and unloading the car of our luggage. The trip was a great success!

All was great, until we stumbled upon a minor disaster of sorts; the refrigerator in our sun room, an older one that got relocated out there since we had a new one come with a kitchen renovation the year prior, was turned off. Investigating, we found it happened about two days after we left. We surmised this date due to the loss of some electronics we had plugged in with the fridge at the same time, that provided the time they lost power. 

I checked the breaker the fridge and the electronics were on, which had not tripped, so I investigated further. 30 years after moving into our home, I discovered the sun room/lanai receptacle is tied into the bathroom GFI receptacle.  The GFI tripped and thus the fridge and the electronics tripped off as well.  The only things plugged into that circuit while we were gone? The fridge and the electronics in the sun room, of course.

The fridge had been plugged in the sun room for almost a year with no issues, so why did it happen, especially since it was the only thing running on that circuit?  During that year, a vacuum, a hair dryer, a Water-pick, the smelly air-freshener/light, and some other things had been plugged into that circuit, all at the same time, with no issues.  There is no definitive answer, except in life good things and bad things happen to all of us.  We turned the GFI breaker back on and the fridge ran fine for several more years before we recently replaced it with new one. 

Though the freezer had food (meat) in it, it stayed cold long enough for us to come home to a thawed out but not yet smelly rotten compilation of poultry, pork and beef.  We turned it back on to refreeze the meat so we could throw it out for an odorless garbage pickup the next week.  Now there was a silver lining to all this; after the fridge was cleaned out, we emptied our stand-up freezer contents into the now-empty fridge’s freezer compartment, and took the stand-up freezer out into our garage to let it defrost as it had iced up a bit and needed cleaned out.

We put the freezer back into place, having cleaned it up and the area it resides in, and slowly but surely restocked it – perhaps in a better order than before.  Sometimes disasters befall us, but when they do, it often leads to improvements that make us better and stronger (and better aware how our houses are wired).

Our meat loss in no way compares to what Job went through, yet whenever bad things happen in my life I think of Job and his Faith in God that overcame his troubles and set him up for a better life after losing everything.  I also thought of James’ opening remarks that let us know as Christians we will have our troubles, some not so bad, some bad and some really bad.  James provides in any stormy period we go through as Christians when we approach it in Faith we often see the positives of going through the trouble often outweighs the negatives.

Why did the GFI trip?  I don’t know, a couple of ideas are we turned up the temperature on the HVAC and shut the doors of the sun room from the rest of our house.  The fridge could have ran more and overheated, causing the GFI to pop to prevent a fire. It could have also been a lightning storm that caused a surge that tripped the GFI, again saving the fridge and preventing a fire at the cost of the meat inside of the freezer compartment.  No matter what the reason, it happened, but the good news is the fridge still worked after restoring power to it, and there was no fire. 

This in turn allowed us to finally defrost the stand-up freezer, without having to try to store the items in it in coolers and try to rush the job (with the hair dryer or my heat gun).  We restocked the freezer in a more orderly fashion so we don’t have to excavate to find the one item we think is in there.  We’ll have a fresher stock of goods as well (though it is more expensive now for meat products). 

Jesus uses the storms in our lives, no matter how big or small, to sharpen our dependencies and our Faith unto Him.  25 years ago, I may have been more like, ‘why did this have to happen to us?’.  Today, through Faith I can say, ‘Lord, thank You for saving us from a fire, and for allowing us to keep our fridge’, and ‘thank You for providing us a fridge that allowed us to have a supply of meat’, and ‘thank You for providing us the means to restock after this.’ 

Sometimes when bad things happen it isn’t bad at all compared to what was prevented.  A delay in traffic on I-75 that may make you late for an appointment may avoid getting into a pile up further up the road.  I am never happy to see a couple of packs of bacon getting tossed into the garbage (my heart still weeps for that lost bacon), but I am joyful that I’m able to write this and other posting in my intact house today, Praise be to the Lord! 

Remember, when you’re car won’t start, or your toaster burns up the stuck pieces of bread, or some other incident occurs; have Faith that the Lord is in control, He is watching out for you, and you will be Blessed in remaining Faithful to Him – even if you don’t see directly what that Blessing exactly is.