You’re a neat person.
I don’t mean that you’re “cool” (though you are). I mean that you like things tidy and in order.
You like the dishes to be put away, not piled up on the counter.
You like your books arranged on the shelf in particular ways, spices tucked away in the right places.
You’re neat.
And for that reason, the blankets frustrate you.
Because they’re hardly ever in order. They get messed up, kicked around, and out of alignment. They lay there all day, untidied, unkempt until we crawl back into bed at night.
The blankets on our bed are hardly ever in order, and that frustrates you.
But I like them that way. Because they are us.
The blankets get all messed up because that’s the way life is. Life gets out of sync.
The blankets stay all messed up because we have other priorities, other things we care about, other things we deem more important in life than a well-kept bed.
You could make the bed first thing in the morning. Instead you grab your coffee and your Bible and head to the back porch. Christ and Kingdom are more important to you.
You could make the bed in the middle of the morning, but you spend your time encouraging your friends and apprentices on Facebook.
You could make the bed at lunchtime, but instead you help the kids with their math, their writing, and their English.
You could make the bed in the afternoon, but instead you serve your family by going to the grocery. Few people wouldn’t rather make the bed.
You could make the bed in the evening, but you’d rather spend that time with your family.
The blankets get messed up because that’s life.
They stay messed up because you care about deeper things.
I know it’s frustrating. But the blankets are an accurate reflection of who we are.
The corners don’t line up.
Like our schedules.
And our opinions.
And our desires, likes, tastes, preferences.
The blankets don’t line up around the edges, because that’s who we are.
You and me.
But we overlay them anyway, and they work. It’s not the edges that matter.
They overlap at the center.
Sometimes we make the bed. Sometimes we have to. Sometimes life gets so out of sync we have to stop what we’re doing and straighten them out and make it neat.
Yeah. Life gets like that sometimes.
Sometimes we even make the bed when people come over. We want them to see us at our best.
We want them to see us unified, from corner to center.
We know they expect to see us praying together 6 hours a day.
We know they expect us to be completely in sync.
We know they expect us to be in agreement on everything, spiritual at all times.
We know they expect tidy blankets.
But it’s not who we are.
I say it’s not the tidy blankets that make us who we are. Our blankets are messy.
It’s what’s underneath that matters most.
What’s underneath?
Warmth. Affection. Love. Kindness.
Intimacy.
Cold feet and hot flashes.
Embrace.
What’s underneath is the two of us intertwined in every way.
Underneath is who we are.
Every morning we go our separate ways.
Every night this is where we return.
Underneath.
Together again.
Both of us in our wholeness.
In sickness and in health.
In plenty and in want.
In youth and in age.
So let’s make the bed from time to time. Let’s appease the drive for neatness in you and put on the façade for our guests that our life is flat, pressed, and tucked.
But let’s also crawl under them and mess them up.
Because that’s who we are: messed up and out of sync.
And I like it that way.
--Les Hardin
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