He Made My Mistake a Miracle

Last week, I blogged about The "Flaw" in God's Plan, and hinted at a mistake I made, and openly wondered why God let it happen. I don't know if God planned things out to happen this way, or if this was Him taking lemons and making lemonade, but either way, He turned my mistake into a miracle. I suppose, to understand what happened, you need to know the details.

On the night of Thursday, August 15, Joe and I found a stray dog. We took her home, gave her food and water, and had her stay the night. The next day, Mom asked me to take the dog to the SPCA and have her checked for microchips. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do after it was determined that she didn't have any microchips, so I guessed that I was supposed to just leave her at the shelter. I guessed wrong.

When I found out just how wrong I was, I was terribly upset and even angry at God. He had led the dog to us. He knew, or could have foreseen, that I would make that mistake. He knew how much that was going to upset my Mom, the dog, and me. But he let it happen anyway. The next morning, on Saturday, August 17, I blogged about that, and I figured that whether it seemed like it or not, God had a plan, and somehow, this whole mess was part of it.

For about a week, the dog was in what they call a "Stray Hold," so only her owner could adopt her. Through a series of phone calls, we learned that that waiting period ended yesterday, so I went to adopt her - not to pick her up, since I couldn't drive her home without a licensed driver in the front seat - just to sign the papers and pay the fee.

The fee was going to be $85, and our family can't really afford to drop nearly a hundred dollars to adopt another dog, especially when we already had the dog in our possession, and were really only paying the $85 to get her back. I had made a seriously costly mistake. But at least the adoption fee included getting the dog spayed and vaccinated, giving her a microchip, and paying for a year of license fee. It's still a lot of money, it was still a costly mistake, but at least some good came out of it.

So yesterday, Thursday, August 22, I went to pay the fee and adopt the dog. I signed a bunch of papers, jumped through another logistical hoop (that I need to jump through again, if I can), and got ready to hand over the $85. Then the lady told me that the adoption fee was only $30. Confused, I told her that I had been told that the adoption fee was $85, but included spaying and the microchip, etcetera. Was the "Adoption Fee" $30, and the "Spaying Fee," "Microchip Fee," and "Everything Else Fee" cost extra? The total was still $85, right? That's how much money I was carrying. No, the Adoption Fee was only $30, and it still included all those other costly extras. $30. Total. They were having a special on adopting dogs - a special that they only have on Thursdays.

So, we got a spayed, vaccinated, licensed, microchipped, and lovable new member of our family, and the whole procedure only cost us $30. Oh, and they threw in a handful of priceless life lessons for free.

All I can say now is that God knows what He's doing. Whether this was Plan A or Plan B, I have to admit it worked out pretty well, and now I'm ashamed that I ever doubted Him. I'm starting to think that God has a hand in literally everything that happens, and that even when something terrible happens, God has a plan so that, somehow, in the end, it's all going to be okay. God loves us. Everything He does, He does to make us happy (and I'm talking about eventual, eternal happiness, not the kind of happiness that we're missing out on because life is hard sometimes).

Could it be that everything God causes, or chooses not to prevent, is calculated to (eventually) give us the greatest possible amount of happiness? I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that, but it does kind of make sense. We know that everything God does, He does because He loves us. Does that include choosing not to prevent suffering? Does that mean that, in some way, experiencing suffering and even sometimes causing suffering, can lead to greater happiness (assuming that we learn from those experiences)?

There's a lot I don't know about life, but I think I gained a little insight, all because of this experience. I'm not sure what all this insight implies, but it makes me feel a little better about all the bad things that happen in the world. God has a plan for our happiness, and since He knows we'll make mistakes along the way, He probably has a plan for that, too. In fact, He might have factored the mistakes He knew we were going to make and the bad things He knew were going to happen to us into His Plan A. Maybe all of this was meant to happen. I can't say for certain, but I can now say for certain that God has a foolproof plan.