I started making my bed.
I haven’t done this in years. 
And certainly, have never done it consistently.
In fact, I believe the only time
I’ve ever made my bed
is when my mother specifically
requested it of me.

It just seems like such a futile thing to do
if I am the only person who goes in my bedroom,
and I am the one who is going to get back in the bed
just a few hours after getting out of it.
I hardly see why tugging the blankets straight every morning
is something that matters.

Except.

I’ve heard it said many times,
that some people are meant to be in our life
for only a season.
And I know that is supposed to be comforting,
Or meant to give me some kind of closure,
But I’ve found it leaves me more frustrated than anything else.
Because if it was all going to end,
if it was always going to hurt like this,
was it worth it to be close to them in the meanwhile?

I want the answer to be “yes.”
I know the answer should be “yes.”
But I’m not sure I could truthfully answer that question with a “yes.”

So, I’ve started making my bed.
If there’s one thing I know about myself,
It is that I am inherently
stupid,
and in order to learn an abstract and difficult-to-practice concept,
I need to put it in terms I can understand.

Which is why,
every morning I now make my bed.
Because even though no one will ever see it,
and those blankets are going to be wrinkled
and tossed again
mere hours from now,
perhaps,
perhaps,
there is still purpose in caring about something like that in the meanwhile.

See,
I’ve learned a lot about the depth of God’s love for me.
I’ve seen the greatness of His Goodness and
His Faithfulness.
I’ve heard Him speak directly to me, in the quiet places,
Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.
But I’ve also learned just how inadequate my finite frame
will always be in loving Him back.

I understand what Isaiah meant when he stood in the presence of God and cried out
“Woe to me!”
For even if I say ‘the Lord is Holy,’
I am a mortal of unclean lips,
And the word ‘holy’ becomes tainted with sin
just from rolling off my tongue.

I have not had the honor of an angel
purging the sin from my lips
with a burning coal,
but I do have the honor
of pulling blankets toward the headboard
and placing utterly useless pillows on top of them
to teach myself the value of the meanwhile.

In my great inadequacy
to wholly love
a holy God,
I’ve begun to fear
He loves like human beings do.
That eventually, He’ll get sick of my apologies
and failed attempts to live perfectly,
and then God will leave me too.

I have to preach the Gospel to myself
over and over and over
again.
Just as each morning,
I tug at bedsheets
over and over and over
again.
A daily reminder that my inability to be perfect
is what qualifies me for the salvation that Jesus offers.

Perhaps I am the bed, and God the bed-maker.
Each day He looks at my life: rumpled and tossed about,
and every day, He sets it all back in place.

Perhaps my heart is the bed, and I am the bed-maker.
And every time I find myself straying from what
the Lord has asked of me,
I can remember I don’t have to stay a mess any longer.

Perhaps I am overly romantic or overly poetic
in my attempts to make sense
of a bruised heart
still trying to heal.
And bedsheets really have very little to do
with permanence and futility.

But perhaps every morning that I pull a sheet straight
and set a pillow in place,
I am promising myself
that caring about something in the meanwhile
is worth it.
I am teaching myself the heart of God.
That it isn’t about whether or not the bed is made or unmade,
It’s about the fact I took the time to make it.

Not to make the bed once and then sleep on top of the covers so I never have to make it again.
But to make the bed, and then to live my real life,
tossing and turning
and getting up the next day
and taking the time again.

Maybe all of life is just a metaphor
of loving and losing
and loving again.
And maybe, making the bed is the most poetic
of spiritual disciplines.
And maybe,
someday,
I’ll learn to see there is beauty here
in the meanwhile.