Lessons from My Dishwasher

The new dishwasher when we moved into our home five years ago was not the dish-cleaning powerhouse Consumer Reports touted it to be. It will not clean unrinsed, but carefully stacked dishes and a few precariously stacked pots. And the stainless steel innards grew cloudy quickly.  We therefore learned how use an energy efficient appliance, an oxymoron – for it made more work for me.

My Energy Efficient Sink . . . 

Lowered phosphates in dishwasher soap meant no matter what the manufacturer had promised, getting the dishes ready for washing meant scrubbing them thoroughly, and not filling the racks to their capacity. And because the (cheap) plastic interior racks broke, I couldn’t fill’er up.  (Phosphates and Dishwashers) We also hit the button for a sani-rinse cycle. After I load the dishwasher, I can wash by hand what won’t fit.  If I forget to follow the simple instructions, crusty stuff coats the dishes.  And I have start over, and run the dishwasher again.  So, keeping bad chemicals out of the environment means I use 2-3 times more water – not to mention using additional energy to heat the water for the extra hand washing what my “powerful” new dishwasher can’t handle.

So much for energy efficiency. 

Nonetheless, I see some applications. Like my energy efficient dishwasher I don’t always live up to what I would like to be . . . a Proverbs 31 kind of gal. Nor, can I do all the stuff I used to tell people I could – I don’t think I thought I was Invincible but I was a lot more sure of myself in the early 1970’s than I am at the prospect of the real “seventies!” 

Once upon a time, our church started at nine – and before we walked out the door, to pick up midshipmen and my mother I had Sunday dinner in the oven. Seriously – I think I remember that right, too.  Who was I? I was barely forty – that’s who! Now, we might be late to 11 o’clock services and I won’t have a clue what’s for lunch.

Like my dishwasher, I work – but often, I need to do-over some things that seemed simple enough. Or, I have to do things in much smaller segments!

And like my unpredictable dishwasher, I can use another rinse cycle – especially come this time of year.  The holidays evoke all kinds of emotions from grief to greed, melancholy to the munchies – and from joy to depression. Even right after church, I could use a re-do. My soul feels gritty, like the cups when I pull them from the dishwasher and discover how counterproductive over stacking the racks were.

Still, I am not pumping water from a well, like my grandmother had to do. Nor must I balance heavy jugs on my head and make a long trek from a water source to my home. And the water [I take for granted] is clean: Every day, 6,000 people die from dirty water. (Samaritan's Purse -- Clean Water)

So, thank you Lord for lessons from unexpected places, and directions from unexpected things.

Petition

From that which You have delivered me,

through the stuff You have carried me,

so I might live, thank You God.

God, help me walk – even when I can’t.

Shame me when I won’t, reminding me of the walk You took for me.

For my sins You have forgiven,

so I might have mercy, help me, Lord.

God love through me when I can’t –

 shame me when I won’t,

reminding me of how You first loved me.

Without You, I have no light.

Keep my lamp burning lest I curse the darkness.

 And now to the dishes!