The Miracle of the Screw
I really like miracles, the big and
the small. When I was serving a mission, a missionary named Elder Field, who
was in my district in Winchester, Virginia, shared a story of a small miracle
that happened to him. He was shopping at a grocery store and he really wanted
some jam. He didn’t want just any jam he wanted a particular flavor, I think it
was plum. It was his favorite jam. He went to the jam isle and he looked at the
place where the plum jam was. They were all gone. He was disappointed, and he
began walking away. But he had a feeling to go back and check the place where
the plum jam was again. He went back, and looked at the empty space on the
shelf. He looked way in the darkened back of the shelf and there it was, a
single jar of plum jam. It was a small miracle, but I think everyone recognized
the tender mercy that the Lord bestowed on one of his servants that day. He
loves his children. I did not know Elder Field very well at all, because other
than that story, all I remember is that he was very quiet, yet I have
remembered that story he shared, and I have often thought of it. In the fact,
the story was extremely popular, and it spread over the whole mission. It
seemed for a couple months it was referenced often in many talks given at
district and zone meetings, and even mission conference. It really resonated
with the Elders and Sisters in the mission.
Miracles are there, more often than we may think, if we just recognize them. Now for the Miracle of the Screw.
Since Jami and I have lived in our
new house, we have had no ceiling light in our bedroom or our kids’ bedrooms.
Our house was built in the 1970’s, so it was a time when people built houses
without lights in the ceiling for some odd reason. However, our bedroom does
have a box in the ceiling, and has been ready for a light, thanks to a previous
owner putting it there after the house had been built.
After one year of living here, we
finally bought a ceiling light for our bedroom. It is a funny light with a
bunch of wood beads all around it. The day it came in the mail, I got home from
work late as usual, probably 9 o’clock. I also had to wake up at 5:30 in the
morning, and go to work the next day. Jami and I were excited and decided to
put the light up. After all, it should be pretty easy to put a light up. So I
turned off the circuit breaker, and got the light wired up. No problem. I
needed Jami’s help to hold the flash light and help hold the light while I put
in the screws. If you have ever put a light fixture on you may know that it can
be quite a trick to line the screws up through the hole in the light fixture
with the hole in the box on the ceiling, especially with that piece of
insulation they put in there around the wiring so you can’t see anything
through the light fixture’s hole. We tried for a while, and it wasn’t going
anywhere. So I got a nail out and tried to line the hole up that way, but still
the screw wouldn’t connect. In fact, it felt like the screw wasn’t even hardly
touching anything behind it when I tried to put it in. Finally I realized the
screws they gave us, were exactly as long as the fixture was wide! I cursed the
desire of the manufacturer to save half a cent of metal per screw. Unless the
light fixture box on the ceiling stuck out half an inch this wasn’t going to
work. I would need a screw that was half an inch longer, or have super human
strength and push the screw in so hard that it bent the metal of the fixture in
half an inch. So I gave up. It was about 11 p.m., and I needed to go to bed to
get my meager 6 hours of sleep to be able to function somewhat for the next day
of work. I would have to stop at the hardware store to pick up some new screws
because I didn’t have anything like that in my miscellaneous assortment of
screws in the garage (the screws were really fat stubby screws).
Well about four or five days later,
without having gone to the hardware store, I for some reason got the itch to
get that fixture up right away. Again, I had arrived home at 8 or 9 that night.
I was looking for the cursedly short screws, and was looking through all the
chaotic mess of junk that I keep on my two junk shelves in my closet. I thought
that was where I had put them. As I was looking, I stumbled across a different
screw. It was just like the other screws, fat and stubby, but a little longer.
I then remembered I had put the first screws in my electrical tool box. I got
one of those out and compared the width of the screw and lined up the threads
to the newly found screw, they were exactly the same except the new screw was
half an inch longer! So with renewed determination and hope I tried again to
get the light fixture up with Lincoln helping me this time. After two or three
tries, again with the nail method, the light was up! Albeit with only one screw
holding it up for now, but it is up and we have a light in our room!
I still for the life of me can’t remember
where that screw came from originally. I save random screws all the time, in
case I need them, but I don’t usually just put them in my closet. Where it came
from, I don’t know, but I feel it was a small miracle. Like Elder Field’s jam,
that Heavenly Father was just sending me a little blessing to let me know that
He cares about Jami and I, and because the light was important to us, it was
important to Him.
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