It was a rainy afternoon, and everything seemed to be going wrong. My DIY table saw suddenly refused to cooperate. I switched it on again—the sound of the motor revving gave me hope—but it just couldn’t push through. I knew the problem right away: the starting capacitor was busted.
No problem. I had a spare.
This should have been an easy task… if only I had the proper tool.
The capacitor was fastened by four bolts with flat-drive slots. And of course, I didn’t own a single flat screwdriver. I had every size of Phillips imaginable—just not the one I needed.
I walked over to a neighbor’s house and asked if I could borrow one. He handed it to me and casually said I could keep it. Back home, I went straight to work. Three bolts loosened without a fight. The fourth, however, refused to budge. I pushed harder. The screwdriver twisted, its tip ruined.
I left it on the workbench and went out to buy a heavy-duty replacement—one I was sure would finish the job.
Years passed.
The twisted screwdriver moved from bench to floor, then to corners of the shop. It was rarely noticed, but never thrown away. Sometimes I used it as a paperweight—placed on top of bills or receipts so the wind wouldn’t scatter them.
One day, my brother-in-law came home carrying a game cock. He said it was payment from a debtor—better than getting nothing at all. No one in the house cared for cockfighting, but the rooster needed to be secured. It had a leg leash, and the loose end needed a stake.
I looked around for something useful. That’s when I saw the idle screwdriver lying nearby. I drove it into the ground and tied the leash to it. The rooster stayed put. Job done.
Another year passed.
Then I left for overseas work. Three years later, I came home with a firm conviction: I had to start WoodBlock. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. But I knew this—it wouldn’t just be WoodBlock. It would be Journey WoodBlock.
The road back home wasn’t easy.
I started again in the backyard, working alone, just like before. Everything felt familiar, yet strangely different. I slowly rebuilt my tools—some power tools, some hand tools. Then came the day I needed to install hinges on cabinet doors.
I had only one cordless drill. Work dragged on as I kept switching between a screwdriver bit and a 3mm drill bit for pilot holes. As I paused, I noticed something sticking out of the ground—the red handle of the old screwdriver. The rooster was long gone.
An idea came to me.
I pulled the screwdriver out of the soil, sharpened its twisted tip on the bench grinder, and turned it into an ice pick. It worked beautifully—piercing clean pilot holes, making the screws glide in effortlessly. The once useless tool had finally found its purpose.
That moment stayed with me.
I saw myself in that screwdriver. I saw people who failed early and thought they were finished. I saw how God repurposed lives—convicted criminals becoming preachers, career women becoming full-time mothers, teachers becoming tradesmen, tradesmen becoming entrepreneurs.
God has a way of doing things differently from how we imagine.
That night, I dreamed the screw driver attended a school reunion. It stood among its batch—polished tools talking about their careers and the companies they belonged to. One of them asked,
“Are you sure you belong here?”
The reporposed tool answered,
“I failed at the beginning. I couldn’t perform as a screwdriver. I became a paperweight, a stake for a rooster. I burned under the sun and froze at night. But my master found my use. I don’t turn anymore—I pierce first, so others can hold.”
In the seasons when you feel misplaced or unused, do you trust that God is still preparing you for a purpose greater than you can yet see?
Originally published on Benjie's Bench - Measuring Life's lessons in Millimeters