A Fiasco Isn't That Bad, Really

How many times have you heard someone say, “Oh, it was horrible. The whole thing was a complete and total fiasco.” It’s our way of saying that whatever it was, it was a disaster of proportions big enough to warrant the use of a fancy foreign word, right? Well, I learned something last night: Fiascos aren’t all that bad by definition.

According to one word definition site (I don’t know really who publishes it, but it does have “Princeton” in the address), “fiasco” means: “debacle; a sudden, violent collapse”. But according to the book I was reading last night (2201 Fascinating Facts…I got it free at the Friends of the Library book sale – just a little fascinating fact of my own), the word “fiasco” comes from the ancient art of Italian glass blowing. If an artist, it says, was making a complicated, delicate bottle and messed up, they would turn the creation into an ordinary drinking flask instead of scrapping the material. And what is the Italian word for “ordinary drinking glass”? You guessed it: fiasco. (I know, I know, fascinating and it’s a fact…and there’s 2200 more of them where that came from!)

But seriously, it made me think about all the times we call something a “fiasco”, intending to say that it was a total mess where everything including our good intentions went to waste. How neat that all that time we were really using a word that, when dug into a little bit, hides a rather stunning spiritual truth. Romans 8:28 says that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” You know what that says to me this morning? God can take our totally scrap-able moments (mistakes we make, not Him) and turn them into something useful according to His plan for our lives. What a great God we serve! He is a master artist Who never lets His material go to waste.

When I think of all I’ve done to mess things up in life and all He’s done to redeem me, I think I’m pretty proud to be a genuine fiasco. He has redeemed my life from the pit and given me a purpose on this earth, and I pray that I will honor Him for that today.

That’s all for now – I have to run and dry my hair before it sets this way and my hairday becomes a complete disaster. Not a fiasco - a disaster. I wonder if there’s any catchy origin to that word…