God’s loving ways can be very subtle at times! Case in point: For years, I did the routine maintenance on all our vehicles and I’d been noticing for a month or so that my daughter Larissa’s Toyota truck radiator was consistently low on coolant when I’d check it. One Sunday after church a lady noticed a puddle of coolant under Larissa’s truck.
Later that day I checked things out and saw that her radiator was literally bursting at the seams — coolant was oozing out of the top! There was no question: I’d better install a new radiator. I didn’t want her to break down somewhere on I-5!
Early the next day, ordered a new radiator. They said it would be there by 11:00 a.m. so I decided to start taking the old one out. That was quite a job but everything went pretty well. When the radiator arrived at O’Reilly’s, Laurie went and picked it up. The install went just fine and I was ready to test things out by about 3:00 p.m.
I started up the truck, looked underneath to check for leaks — and noticed transmission fluid squirting out of one of the transmission fluid cooling lines! Seems I’d forgotten to install a clamp that holds one of the lines securely onto the radiator. I immediately shut off the engine and secured the clamp, fired up the engine, and the leak had stopped.
While looking closely at that clamp, I noticed the fitting this hose attached to was dripping transmission fluid. It was loose from the factory. I tightened it and the dripping stopped. That leak caused me to check the fitting on the other side of the radiator — maybe it was loose as well. Sure enough, it was. As I began to tighten it, it fell off!
Turns out that there was a design-flaw on this fitting that made it impossible to thread it back onto the radiator. I tried everything, every little trick-of-the-trade to get this piece to fit back on. No luck. I went back to O’Reilly’s and explained my dilemma. I bought some other fittings in the hopes I could finish the job. In the meantime it was getting pretty late — 7:30 p.m.
I was unable to resolve the problem that night so Larissa was unable to get back to the Police Academy that evening for classes the next morning. Not wanting to take out the radiator, by the next morning I came up with an idea that worked. Without going into the details, by early afternoon on Tuesday I had her truck up and running!
Here’s how God was working, showing His lovingkindness: Had the radiator builders not failed to tighten the one fitting, I never would have known about the other defective fitting. Larissa would have been driving along somewhere on I-5, maybe the Grapevine, and the bad fitting would have simply come off, all her transmission fluid would have gushed out and she would have burned up her transmission — about a $6000 fix-it job, not to mention being stranded somewhere on the highway!
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28.
Snags, delays, inconveniences — these and myriad other vexations are all by design for the ultimate good of all God’s children!