Biggest blessings in life can come from mistakes

Think about this: sometimes our mistakes can turn out to be blessings. I think back to an early event in my life that illustrates this statement.  As a child, I loved Ivory soap because I was so amazed that it floated in the water when I took a bath.

I remember not long after Daddy and Mother bought our very first television, I became acquainted with two commercials. They are still very fresh in my mind. One commercial showcased Dinah Shore singing “See the USA in your Chevrolet!” The other was a soap commercial - “Ivory Soap-the soap that floats!”

The Ivory soap commercial was a fifty’s classic. It showed a bathtub with two little children taking a bath with Ivory soap. The mother said something like this:  “I buy Ivory because with children the soap is never lost…it floats!”

I thought that was just wonderful and remember telling mother I thought it was magic. So we bought Ivory soap just like millions of other families in the fifties.

Then I found a wonderful story that told the truth about the soap that floats. Years ago Ivory was just another soap and its fame came about  because of a mistake that a factory foreman made when he left a batch of new soap unattended in one of the cooking vats. He left for lunch thinking he would be back in plenty of time.

When he got back and looked at the vat’s timer, to his dismay he found that the soap had overcooked. The foreman was afraid he would get fired if he reported the mishap, so he went ahead and had the batch of soap shipped out to waiting retailers.

No one noticed anything different except the reports from consumers came back to the company that the new soap cleaned just as good and was much lighter. The outcome amazed everyone: they got no complaints, but were swamped  with orders for this floating soap.

The foreman’s mistake had far reaching consequences. He changed the soap world and as a result got a promotion. His new position was to help the company chemists amend the old concoction for soap to the foreman’s recipe for “the soap that floats.”

This story shows that sometimes blessings come from our mistakes. That gives me hope. In my lifetime, I have many times not done the wise and right thing the first time. Now that I am older, I can look back and see that through my mistakes and lack of judgment, God was working things out in my life. My mistakes were used by God to fulfill his destiny for me.

I suppose in the whole scope of eternity, what seemed bad for me was not bad. God allowed me to go through those things and in that process matured me so I would grow to lean on Him more and more for strength to live. Now Paul’s words mean even more to me: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28.)

That’s the hope for all of us. None of us are without mistakes, mishaps, poor judgment and faulty thinking.  The good news is that God is ready to help by taking our mistakes and transforming them to blessings if we will just trust Him to do so.

Judy Brandon is a Clovis resident. Contact her at: cbrandon@plateautel.net