God Meant it for Good

Having some trouble connecting to the iTunes store from an app called "Cards" on my iPad caused a whole chain of events. After hours of trying to figure out why that app wouldn't work, the Apple Care Genius and I stumbled on the fact that the accounts on my iPad wouldn't accept my VISA security code. After hours of trying a whole mess of different things to get the security code to enter, we finally called VISA, though I told the Apple Care genius it would be a wasted effort. Lo and behold, we found out we had been mailed another card with a new number. It was buried in a pile of unread mail. Our old card would have no longer worked for other purchases, and it might have been bad if we had needed it in an emergency.
What a happy accident!

When the program (Cards) I was trying to use still wouldn't connect to the store, the Apple Care genius, (who are all trained to be the most polite creatures on earth) suggested we troubleshoot by first seeing if I could buy an app with the new VISA card. He told me to just get some cheap 99 cent app that I might like. I found an art app that I had heard of but never bothered to get and the sale went through perfectly well. It turned out to be a wonderful app that creates great watercolor effects and while the apple care genius continued to troubleshoot with me, I doodled the little picture above. What a happy accident!

When the original app continued to tell me "error, cannot connect to iTunes store", the Apple Care genius had me try the same app on my smart phone. Same problem. Then he suggested I turn off the wifi, and just use the cellular connection on my phone and try to use the app. This time, it worked.
"Your internet connection is bad," he told me.
For months, ever since our connection was supposedly "improved" when the Cable people came to "upgrade" our service, I have been having problems. I had insisted they did something that made service worse. Now I had proof. I will call the Cable people tomorrow and maybe my ten or twenty minute waits for programs to load on my computer will finally be over.
What a happy accident!

So often setbacks and failures make us believe that God is no longer with us, and we moan and groan over all the wasted time and lost opportunities. But time and time again, it is in the failures and setbacks of life that new potentials arise. In Bible study class that very morning, our teacher had told us a story of Amy Carpenter, the missionary to India who singlehandedly started an orphanage and rescued scores of young indian children out of prostitution. She had prayed as a little girl that God would change her brown eyes to blue. God had not complied. As an adult, when she went in the cover of darkness to the temples where the prostituted young girls were kept, she disguised herself as an Indian woman. Had her eyes been blue, those frightened girls would never have trusted her, but as a seemingly fellow Indian friend, she was able to convince them to leave the temple and follow her to safety.

You just never know when what looks like setbacks and failures may turn out to be what God intended all along.

Genesis 50:20 (NIV)
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.





-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org