I was looking left while turning right one balmy summer Monday night about a month ago. On my motorcycle, I hit the curb on a sharper right turn than I had expected. And at forty miles per hour, I got a free flying lesson off the on ramp of the freeway. Thrown forty feet into a ravine, I did a triple back flip with a twist, sticking the landing on my head.  My friends gave me a “7” on the dismount!  Until then I was riding careful, I had my little dog, “Shuggs” on the back.(She on the other hand was in a harness and unharmed) We were filming some road clips for a music/video promo for my biker humor book: Hogwash. This highlight was missed on camera, probably a God send in the way of circumstances I would never live down.

The bottom line is: that little moment of distraction cost me more than any video project I ever did with the possible exception of one. Just the “short bus” ride was more than the budget! Medical expenses as a precautionary check up came to 6K. All I had was some road rash on my left arm and an incredibly disfigured sense of professional pride. (no charge for that repair). But, being unconscious for I don’t know, a nano second, gave cause for further review of my condition. That, and Paramedics found me weeping over “Jezebel”, my Heritage Softail Harley Davidson in my bloodied condition. She took some 5K in damages herself.

I spent the next five hours in an ER, strapped to a back board and a neck brace (against my will of course). “the only pain I feel is coming from the jokes I’m hearing in the waiting room” I complained, speaking of my friends in  Black Sheep Harley Davidson’s For Christ who arrived within minutes of hearing. It’s amazing that a single twitter post can fire a shot heard round the world these days.

But the aftermath of a mistake is slow in taking shape, and so too is finding a way to pray about it. We’ve all heard about “learning from our mistakes” but here I’m talking about “turning a mistake”. “God causes all the things to work for good when we are called to his good purpose” a scripture roughly says. Learning can be seen as simple notes on paper applied to memory. But maybe God is saying something more about mistakes. He is not surprised by future events. He can still draw a straight line with a crooked stick as, Anthony Campolo, a theologian friend of mine likes to say.

This little story is probably the least of my mistakes I could share. I know you have your own, beyond embarrassing “falls”. If you have any time in faith at all you know yourself in God’s eyes. You know, why you need Jesus in the first place. I follow Jesus because he brings beauty from ashes. I follow him not just for the education but for the transformation! Taking our bricks and turning em into three point shots!

I read somewhere that some of the best inventions known to man were accidently discovered in mishaps. I don’t know why “Corn Flakes” comes to mind first but someone forgot to clean out a mixing bowl and the residue created a new product all by itself. That’s the short version. Google it if yer really that interested. Some of the coolest chords I’ve discovered in music too have been my ineptness at playing a three chord ditty, my thumb falling on the wrong key in my own mind. You know that surprise right? Wow that has a cool sound to it. And suddenly you’ve started a whole new song from an accidental discovery!

That’s not only learning from a mistake but turning a mistake into a triumph!, (or in my case a new Harley Davidson). In the insurance coverage, Jezebel will be born again.

But my mistake came with a deductible I had to pay as well. And by that I was given the opportunity to make a tax deductible investment in promotion. To repaint the bike in a custom color layout of the Hogwash Book Cover with it’s “when pigs fly” artwork making it a “Gorilla Marketing” billboard to be seen everyday where ever I go. (And the redemption story that comes with it). Something I had prayed about before but given up on a year ago as too expensive. Now because of an accident it has to be done anyway. It shall always be to me a reminder of transformation as a direct result of a mistake.

If change must come let us be forward thinking in our circumstances, seeing “What was meant for our destruction, God has now purposed for our good” (another rough application, of Genesis 50: 19-20.) I can’t tell you how that works in your disasters but I am sure that redemption and restoration are possible and not just in the surface paint of our proclamations but born of a victorious heart instilled in us by the Savior of our attitudes as well.