As a young adult, my 20-year-old cousin, Ken Carter, had bought a new telescope at an outrageous, inflation-adjusted cost of about $600. He loaned it to Dad to try out on the stars. One night, Dad and Mother went somewhere and left my sisters and I with a babysitter. I waited until they were out of the driveway before I began tearing apart the $600 telescope. It was so much fun! You just unscrewed things and out came all those lenses! It wasn't long before I had spread it out all across the living-room sofa, having removed all the neat lenses so that I could try to make my own microscopes and telescopes. Before Dad and Mom returned, I reassembled Kenneth's telescope. But somehow, it didn't work quite as well after that. In fact, it worked so poorly that poor Dad and poor Mom had to pay Cousin Kenneth the price of his telescope.
    Years later, I found a good-looking lens in the side of the sofa. I wondered if God had put it there especially for me, but looking back on it now, I'm suspicious that someone  other than God dropped that lens down there. I suspect I know who he was, and when and how he did it.