It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

In the book "Stones into Schools," Greg Mortensen tells about the terrible earthquake that occurred in the fall of 2005 in Pakistan.  Many of the remote villages were totally decimated.  Most of the schools collapsed, killing many of the students.  It was a crisis of enormous proportions.  Very much like what just happened in Haiti, except that instead of it being in the tropics it was in the fall in a country with brutal winters.  Here is an excerpt from the book that tells about what happened...

"By the end of October, Sarfarz also startied to notice an odd gap between what was being delivered and what people actually needed.  A number of outdoor manufacturers from the United States, for example, had donated impressive quantities of high-tech mountaineering tents made with synthetic fabrics that are highly flammable.  As the weather turned cold, these tents became crammed with families who relied on candles and kerosene lanterns for illumination and who prepared their meals on cooking fires directly outside the front flap.  Many of these tents ended up catching fire, resulting in horrific burns and several deaths, especially among children.


A notable exception to this trend were the 'home-rebuilding kits' donated by the Turkish government after significant consultation with refugees on the ground.  The kits...consisted of hammers, nails, shovels, saws, wire, corrugated sheet metal, and other essential building items so that people could fashion temporary shelters in their own villages..."

Isn't this just like our lives?  So often we have a pretty good idea of how we think things should go.  We think we know what would make things work better or make us happier.  We might think that what we really need is a high tech tent.  (Or a new car, a great vacation, a raise, perfect heath, etc.)

Heavenly Father, though, sees so much more clearly than we ever could.  He knows that sometimes our real needs; the things that will enable us to learn and grow and become the people we really want to be, are far more rudimentary and less glamorous than we might like.  He can see when the high-tech tent might even be a dangerous option. 

I'm so glad that in life there is never a gap between what is delivered and what is actually needed...

...know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience,               and shall be for thy good…