Making my Bed Well

This morning when the alarm sounded, my husband and I crawled out of bed and turned to straighten the covers, and I thought about how different we both are from when we first married. It’s funny how life changes us. We start out thinking we know stuff, then learn that we know little. Well, maybe everyone doesn’t start their lives thinking like this, but at least some of us do. During the first half of our marriage, we rolled out of bed and left it in disarray as we went about our day. Now we are both semi-retired and we work together much better than we did earlier in our marriage. Why is that?

We learned. We learned that it takes only seconds to leave the bed neatly made when we work together. We learned that life is easier and more satisfying when we work together. We often discount the seconds we passively spend on unimportant things. Seconds multiply into years when we fail to learn and apply lessons that would benefit us. A made bed seems insignificant and probably is, but many significant things are lost because we don’t realize the need to learn and change. It’s just too much aggravation.

How much trouble and pain we would avoid if we would take the time to learn what is important earlier in life. For instance, we could circumvent so many misunderstandings if we learned to communicate instead of letting anger rule in our relationships. We could show value to others by listening to them instead of cutting them off when they speak, ignoring them, or trying to fix things when they only need a listening heart. I cringe to think of the times I failed to truly listen to my husband or my children when they needed my attention.

The older I get, the more I think about the importance of relationships. When I learn or hear of someone abusing another person, especially a child, I cannot help but wonder how they could do such a thing. How can one person willingly hurt another? What does one benefit from such behaviors? I cannot wrap my head around such actions.

I want to continue to grow and change to the end of my life. I want to learn to be a better wife, mother, grandma, and friend. I want to make my bed well.