Turning trouble into blessing

I chatted with a woman I happened to sit near at church on Sunday. I learned she works in Trenton, a good 30 miles from here. Getting to her job in New Jersey every morning requires a walk to a shopping mall to catch a bus to the train station, from which she takes a train to Trenton and walks the rest of the way to her office.

She used to have a car but the transmission died without warning on the turnpike at 4 a.m. as she was driving to visit her brother in a hospital. By God’s grace she was in the far right lane and managed to maneuver the vehicle onto the shoulder.

The walks to the mall have been cold sometimes, but spring is here so they are more pleasant now. And her health and vigor have improved markedly since her enforced morning constitution began—she has lost 15 pounds. My friend was jubilant in telling me about the nice people she has met on the train. One of them is a woman who has a car waiting at the Trenton station, and she has started giving my friend rides on the last lap of her journey.

Improved health, new acquaintances, tons of money saved on gas, and any number of unquantifiable benefits have resulted from her car’s demise. The most important of these benefits, she said, is that she has learned to trust God with things that seem to go wrong for no good purpose. She and God have a history together now, and she realizes He can see farther down the road than she can, and knows how to turn trouble into blessing.

A certain amount of trouble has hurled into my own life of late. As in my friend’s case, this has resulted in me going to places I would not have gone to, and meeting people I would not have met. Recently I had an appointment with a pastor who I was told could help. Sitting in his office I could see he was a humble man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of joy. He was all about Jesus Christ, and overflowed with it.

What a blessing to my soul. And I thought to myself as I was leaving our meeting that I never would have met him if my life were problem-free.

Andrée Seu Peterson’s Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me, regularly $12.95, is now available from WORLD for only $5.95.