There’s Always a Lesson to be Learned

May 2025

Perhaps you’ve heard the old saying, “Bad luck comes in threes.” If that is true, I’ve certainly had more than my share lately. But rather than get aggravated over every annoying inconvenience, and whether they come in threes, or fours, or fives, I try to reflect on whatever the universe may be trying to teach me through these bouts of “bad luck.”  How about you?

My most recent spate of bad luck episodes began about a month ago while caring for my two elementary school-aged grand-daughters. When making breakfast for the girls one morning, I noticed an interesting clear glass teapot that my daughter-in-law had recently purchased and left sitting on the granite countertop. Thinking I might use it to make myself a cup of tea, I lifted the metallic lid to access the shiny metal tea strainer that fit snuggly inside.  

To my horror, when I lifted the lid, the pumpkin-shaped glass pot stuck to the lid until it had risen about an inch above the countertop. At that point the pot magically released from the lid, crashed into the granite surface, and exploded into hundreds of tiny shards.   

“Oh no!” I thought to myself as I quickly swept up all the shards before my precious granddaughters came wandering in with bare feet looking for breakfast. The worst part was later admitting to my son’s wife that I had broken her brand-new teapot and needed to know where she had acquired it so I could replace it before she returned—which I did. 

Upon returning to my own home, on a lovely spring day a few days later, I turned on the air conditioner to cool the house down.  After an hour or so, I realized the master bedroom had failed to cool off. My husband quickly diagnosed that the AC unit for that part of the house was on the fritz, so I called the AC repairman and awaited his arrival, grateful the weather wasn’t any warmer than it was.  

Over the next day or two, we quickly managed to fill the dishwasher with dirty dishes.  But upon pushing the dishwasher’s “Start” button to run the wash cycle, nothing happened. My husband did all the things one might do to reboot and recover operations, to no avail. The dishwasher had apparently run the last cycle of its twelve-year life, so I washed the load of dirty dishes by hand. Then off to the appliance store we went to purchase a new machine. 

As we returned from our appliance-buying excursion, it became increasingly obvious that a thunderstorm was blowing in. As we entered our driveway, a jarring bolt of lightning struck directly in front of the car. The accompanying crash of thunder was immediate and deafening.    

Later that evening, a follow-on storm came rumbling in. As I stood at the top of the stairs to head to bed, I pleasantly joked to my husband about our chain of bad luck events and concluded, “At least the lights are still working, and the power is still on.” Not 30 seconds later, the power went out. It stayed off for the next 2.5 hours.

By the next morning the storm had vanished, and all the spring songbirds were merrily singing their favorite tunes. So, I took my laptop out on the veranda to do some writing while enjoying the sunshine. As I reached behind the comfy wicker glider, where I had settled, to plug my laptop into the covered outdoor electrical outlet, the electrical receptor refused to accommodate the plug. After multiple attempts, I finally gave up and asked my computer technician husband to give it a try, to no avail. So, we called an electrician to pay us a visit.

While sitting on the veranda, I noticed what appeared to be several pieces of broken pretzels scattered on the decking. Upon closer inspection, it was apparent that portions of the wicker adorning the patio furniture had disintegrated from sun exposure. I then remembered that the last time we had the veranda furniture refurbished, the restoration shop used up their last spool of wicker to do our job and advised us it was no longer being made. That would be the last time these items could be repaired. So, the next day we set off to the patio shop to find new outdoor decor.

The following day, my husband and I decided to take a relaxing walk around our neighborhood. But when we attempted to lock the front door on our way out, the door lock was jammed and wouldn’t budge. Granted, our beautiful Baldwin brass door handle set had been “touchy” for a while, but this time it was indignant. So, instead of going for a walk, my husband spent the next hour removing all the front door hardware to better assess the problem. Diagnosis: The lock mechanism (inside the door) was broken. If we ever wanted to lock our front door again, we needed new door hardware. So, off we went to the builders’ supply store.

A few days later, as I returned home from the grocery store, the garage door where I usually park my car refused to open when I tapped the remote garage door opener button on my car’s dashboard. So, I parked the car in front of the house and walked into the garage from the house to open the garage door from the wall-mounted button. Although the overhead garage door opener made its normal buzzing sound, it refused to open the garage door. After climbing a ladder to finagle with it for a while, my husband confirmed the overhead door opener mechanism was broken.  

As if all that wasn’t enough, for several weeks I had been experiencing a nagging sensitivity in my lower left jaw. One evening while brushing my teeth recently, a decades-old silver filling fell out of that molar, leaving a gaping hole in that tooth. As it turns out, the tooth had completely broken in half and has since been removed.         

I could go on, but you get the message. Despite all these little bouts of recent bad luck, I elect to view each nuisance as God’s punctuation mark on my otherwise wonderful life. It’s easier to fully appreciate all the goodness in your life if you also get to savor at least a little aggravation along the way from which to learn.

Whether or not bad luck comes in threes (or fours or fives or tens), every frustration is an opportunity to thank the Lord for the lesson He is conferring upon you.  Of course, what you learn from such episodes depends on your attitude, so pick a good one.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve realized from this compendium of woes is that I’m truly lucky to live the life I’ve been granted, especially considering the many alternatives that may not be as tolerable. Although my husband and I have had some rather expensive inconveniences to deal with from a financial standpoint, we’ve invested in our home, practiced our patience, and I’ve put my sense of humor on double overtime.

While I’m certainly not perfect in terms of displaying that patience or eagerness to laugh at our maladies (especially the dental part), I’m never-the-less grateful that the many lessons to be learned in life never cease to present themselves.