Oops

During some of my years in the 1970’s as an undergraduate student at BJU, I worked as a lab assistant in the Chemistry Department (now the Department of Chemistry and Physics). I did a range of different things that ran the gamut from preparing chemicals for experimental use to helping students do procedures correctly. One day in the fall of 1978 I was floating between a general chemistry lab and an organic chemistry lab. Students in the latter were working on the synthesis of ethyl bromide. The apparatus consisted of a glass flask connected to a vertical water-cooled glass condenser, and it had a nice 1950’s science fiction movie sort of appearance to it. This particular synthesis is more than a little touchy, and Mr. Brown cautioned the class to avoid letting it get too warm too quickly. One pair of women set their apparatus up correctly and proceeded with the process, but they didn’t adequately control the temperature. The mixture got too hot, rapidly vaporized, and shot out of the top of the condenser like a projectile out of a cannon! The liquid splattered onto the ceiling, and you could still see the splatter before the ceiling tiles were added during the last major laboratory renovation in 1995. I haven’t checked for years, but it’s probably still there. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and that’s good, because I ended up marrying one of those women.

Occasionally on Sunday, right after church, we eat at Compadre’s Mex Mex Grill on North Pleasantburg Drive. They have a lovely dinner buffet with a good range of dishes, and they aren’t spicy unless you add one of their salsas. One of those is just right for me, but the other one is woweee hot! For dessert they have fresh pineapple and cantaloupe, and they’re usually quite good. They also have pieces of wheat tortilla that have been fried and dusted with sugar and cinnamon; mm mm, they’re always quite good. On one such Sunday, I was standing in the men’s room washing my hands when the door swung open. Our eyes met, and as she looked at me I suddenly realized that the plumbing fixtures in this bathroom did not exactly match what would normally be expected in a men’s room. I’m so glad that she didn’t walk in a minute earlier. I also finally recognized that the wallpaper was a little too pink for a typical restaurant men’s room. She began to smile, and so did I, in a rather mortified manner. I immediately apologized, finished up uncharacteristically quickly, and fled. I went back to the table, sat back down, and announced, “They have a very nice ladies’ room here.”

The summer of 1993 was one of the five summers that I worked in the U.S. Air Force’s summer faculty research program. This program was designed for faculty members of four-year colleges, and at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida I did research that combined analytical chemistry and environmental engineering. This was very interesting work, and ultimately the USAF took out a patent on a fiber optic sensor that one of my colleagues and I invented. During this summer, we made good friends with a couple that at the time lived in Lynn Haven, which coincidentally is the town where the original Bob Jones College campus was located. I’d been looking to buy a pickup truck, and he was selling a 1986 Chevrolet that hadn’t run for around a year and a half or so. I bought it for a very good price with the understanding that if I couldn’t get it fixed I would leave it with him (with new parts installed) and he would give me my money back. I fixed a lot of stuff on it, and thankfully I was able to get it back up to snuff. It was bright red, and, based on the children’s book about a big red dog, I decided to name it Clifford the big red truck. Four years later, a few months after my mother died due to complications of a quadruple heart bypass operation, I decided to visit those same friends for some saltwater fishing. Dad went with me, and we had great fun. Before we left I did a rear brake job on Clifford. This seemed to go pretty well, and all seemed well until Dad and I were stuck in traffic on I-85 in Atlanta at about 4 pm on our way back. When we slowed down I noticed a peculiar odor, and I thought something might be overheating. At the next rest area, I pulled over and noticed that the right rear brake was extremely hot. I poured some cold water onto it and it immediately sizzled. Apparently one of the brake shoes was stuck in an odd position, and the friction was generating a lot of heat. I don’t know exactly how it happened, and I can only speculate on why we didn’t have problems with it on the way south. The high temperature also ruined a rubber seal at the end of the axle, and so gear oil from the differential was leaking out. It was leaking quickly—we were in trouble. I turned off at the next exit and found an auto parts store, where I purchased several bottles of gear oil. And then the drill began.

1.     Remove the fill plug on the differential. Thankfully I had brought some basic tools along.

2.     Pour in gear oil until it starts to leak out the top.

3.     Replace the fill plug.

4.     Pour cold water on the hot brake shoe.

5.     Drive slowly in the breakdown lane on the right at 15-20 mph for a while.

6.     Pull over and repeat starting with step 1.

I used a lot of oil, but this process did work. And then at about 9:30 pm a piece of metal in the breakdown lane got stuck in the right front tire and it went flat. I pulled off at the next exit and into an old service garage, and amazingly for a Saturday night they were still open. They repaired the tire and we continued on our way. Dad got home at about 12:30 am, and after getting him unpacked and settled in I got home at about 1 am. Normally I would have gotten him home by about 7 pm. I did a lot of praying during this trip, and I’m very thankful that we were OK. Clifford wasn’t OK: the thermal trauma had ruined his rear axle and possibly the differential, too. I replaced the entire axle and differential assembly with a used one from a junkyard—I had a professional do this work—and then I sold Clifford. Maybe all of this trouble and expense would have been avoided if I had let a professional take care of the brake job in the first place. Have you ever done something yourself and then later regretted it?

Some of us get a lot of satisfaction by doing things ourselves, but we don’t always have the experience or skills needed to be successful. This also applies to spiritually-challenging life circumstances.

It is good that a man should both

hope and quietly wait for

the salvation of the Lord.

 (Lamentations 3:26 KJV)

Sometimes it’s appropriate to sit back and trust God to do things His way. This isn’t easy for a take-the-bull-by-the-horns-and-do-something kind of guy like me. No, I’d much rather dive in and try to fix things.

The fact of the matter is that God is the only one that can change a human heart. At church, Pastor Cook often quotes Psalm 127:1, which says, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it….” John 15:5 records that the Lord Himself said, “…Without me ye can do nothing.” Yes, we can do good things to help people, and we can do them with good motives. But unless the Creator of the universe makes our efforts fruitful, then all we do will be for naught.

It can be extremely uncomfortable to sit back and wait for the Lord to resolve things His way. Some time ago, I persistently asked God to correct any aspect of my thinking about a very difficult set of circumstances. He made it clear to me that I should back off and trust Him to do things His way. By His grace I have done so, and I’ve seen Him do things that only He can do. Yes, my faith has been stretched so tightly that I thought it might break, but He has not yet failed me.