is there ever a time when a bad thing is actually a good thing?

4. When God shoves us out of the nest in order to make us fly.

These kinds of "bad things" are usually only visible with hindsight. I lost that job, but got a better one. God had to kick me out of that nest. The trick is that if God's in it, it works for the good (i.e., to make you "fly"). So if you lose that job and get a worse one, and your life begins to spiral out of control, it's probably not God but brokenness you're looking at.

The upshot is that it's easy to give God credit in hindsight for the good stuff, what's hard is discerning when God is creating (or allowing) the rough patches while it's happening. Certainly God can bring good out of horrible situations (consider Joseph, consider Daniel), but it's hard to understand why God might actually engineer a horrible situation. We're not always as far-sighted as God. We're myopic, God's hyperopic. New word for the day, kids!

Still: did God desire that a man be born blind, so that Jesus might happen along one day and heal him, bringing more people to follow in the Way? Did God desire that Lazarus die so that Jesus could raise him? Tough ones.