Thankfulness #2: Disillusionment

Disappointment. I struggle with wallowing deep in regret. I believe it is a product of my perfectionist leanings. I set a standard. No one can really attain it. Not even me.

Let me illuminate my struggles with an example. My dishwasher. My semi-annoying dishwasher.

The tale of my new dishwasher begins simply but through tragic twists and turns ends up to be a mini-tragedy. In numbered-list fashion, I recount the tale.

1. My husband and I walk into a famous furniture store in our previous urban dwelling. Due to lack of time and little baby boy who needed his Mommy to feed him, our transaction is short and to the point. Dishwasher needed. Reputable brand. Quiet. White. Build-in. We receive the specs. We are satisfied. We pay the price. We leave the store.

2. Dishwasher is delivered to our new home. Installer arrives. He calls me with bad news. Dishwasher has a huge "bowling ball" size dent in it. And it is stainless steel.

3. We return the dishwasher. And ask for some monetary compensation. Credit received. Correct dishwasher re-ordered.

4. New dishwasher arrives and is installed. We notice it has a pull latch. A month later the front panel of the dishwasher begins to come off. We analyze the specifications. Guess what?!? Wrong dishwasher.

5. We return the dishwasher. And ask for free installation. Installation received. Correct dishwasher re-ordered.

6. New dishwasher arrives and is installed. We notice it is much smaller in depth than our previous one. And the glassware isn't cleaned to our standard. We analyse the specifications. Guess what... Right dishwasher. *sigh*

7. We could argue, fight, and try to wrangle the company into giving us a better dishwasher. But we will not. Too much stress. And it is partially our fault. We didn't do much research into a dishwasher. We assumed. We assumed certain standards and certain dimensions. We assumed our salesperson was doing a good job in selling us a GREAT product. We should have known better. After all, we know what assuming does. It makes a "donkey" out of u and me.

I am thankful for disappointment. More specifically, I am thankful for disillusionment. Alanis Morissette mentions it in her list of atypical items of thanks. Oswald Chambers discusses it at length. Consider this quotation from the devotional inspired by him, My Utmost for His Highest:

Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.

Dishwasher aside, I do suffer for disappointment and disillusionment in my human relationships. But I guess that is good. It is something to be thankful for. After all, people will fail me. And I will fail myself. But God will be true to who He claims to be. But I guess I need to do a better job at getting to know God's character because I KNOW I have illusions about who He is. I conclude with more of Oswald's thoughts on the topic:

Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.

Popular posts from this blog

Is God Good?

During "at home learning", I helped my daughter design an experiment on plants. She set up four identical pots with the same amount of soil in the same location on our deck (controlling her variables, right?). She planted two bean seeds in each pot. She watered three out of the four plants with various amounts of water (1/4 cup, 1/2 cup and 1 cup). The fourth plant only received whatever water naturally fell from the sky. At the end of one month, her hypothesis was partially verified. She thought the 1/4 cup water plant and 1/2 cup water plant would grow the best, which was true in the end. On the other hand, she guessed the others would not germinate at all. Interestingly enough, while the one that was drench in water (1 cup) did not germinate, the one she did not water at all actually grew! It germinated late but had the most steady growth. Is God good? I have been thinking about this question a lot these days. A global pandemic is still raging over our planet decimat...
Read more

Daunting {But Not Impossible}

I rarely watch the news. I catch up on the world's happenings -- where often the horror is reported -- via Google News. Or the brief blurb before classic rock on our favourite radio station. But very occasionally, at the end of the day, I take in the images of national and global headlines. Yesterday I watched the masses trek across Europe, searching for a safe haven away from war-torn Syria. I witnessed little kids crying as they tried to rub away tear gas sprayed by unrelenting border police. The message? You are not welcome in this country. I choked up as a father and his son fell to the ground after being tripped up by guards. The look of desperation on people's faces was heart breaking. Our country is nearing a Federal Election in October. Many voters are curious how the next Prime Minister will address the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Here is an excerpt from The Globe and Mail : Mr. Mulcair [NDP] and Mr. Trudeau [Liberal] condemn Mr. Harper [Conservative] for lacking...
Read more

Banking in the Now

This month we are trying something different: banking in the now instead of the tomorrow. Oh, it is nothing new, really. I used to operate like this in my single days. But then the lure of credit cards with reward programs persuaded me otherwise. While I never gave Visa the joy in collecting any interest payments from our bank accounts and I always payed our credit card bill before the 21 days of grace were up, I probably spent more than I should have some months. Why? Because I didn't have to pay for it immediately . It was not until last year that my credit card habits started to bother my conscience. Up to that point, I felt proud of the fact that the credit card company was paying me to use their plastic. I received stuff for free, even after paying my annual fee. Free fuel. Free flights. Free hotels. Free is good, right? My perspective started to change after I read a blog post penned by my sister. Her and her husband cut up their credit cards after a series of events, o...
Read more