Making My Bed

Hospital corners.

The first time I heard of them was during my short boarding stint in primary school.

They were a requirement in making our beds.

Rewind a few years earlier to the day I realized that the more time I spent thinking about whether to make my bed or not, the less likely I was to do it. So I decided to halt all the unhelpful thinking and in the words of Nike – just do it.

So my introduction to hospital corners was interesting. I suppose they intrigued the curious child in me who’s always up for learning something new or doing something differently.

Nearly two decades later I find myself thinking about making beds again. I no longer have to make hospital corners since I live under my own roof and get to choose what my bed looks like. Neither do I have kids who I have to chase around to get their beds made (yet).

But something I saw in passing got me thinking about how well my bed is made. Not the literal bed in my bedroom, rather my life. How have I gone about making the bed in which I must lie every day?

In the midst of an honest self-audit I realized there were some key things I’d left pending. Nothing to do with resolutions. I don’t make those. More to do with seeds. Tiny seeds God had given me in the past few months that I’d left lying on a shelf at the back of my mind instead of planting them in my heart.

Instructions that needed me to make the first step. Then another. Then another. However, as always, the hardest part had been just starting.

Commitments I’d started on but fallen behind on along the way. Because moving forward is an every day journey and skipping one day was the start of skipping them all.

I’m past the phase in my life where I hold pity parties over things done and gone wrong. I’ve come to accept that I can and will make mistakes. Plenty of them. So will others. And the best thing I can do for myself is acknowledge what has gone wrong, find a solution and get on with the business of making amends.

“It doesn’t matter where you are in life, you are only one decision away from being where you want to be.” – Caroline Mutoko

Change is as simple as you make it.

My solution in this case was making a list of seeds that need planting…those that need watering and pruning and tending to. It wasn’t a long list. To many, some of those things would seem insignificant.

But something about reading the promise of the psalmists to fulfill their vows to God [Psalm 66: 13] had driven my resolve to balance my accounts with Him.

In the course of the week, I’ve made progress with each seed. The thing about seeds is that they’re never a one-off. You can’t just plant a seed and move on. That’s only the start of many seasons to come. Project Farming, indeed.

I’m glad I made my list. I’m glad I intentionally took the time to tend to my seeds each day. Even though I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to every single day, that little something is worth a whole lot more than nothing. And I live for the cheap thrill of manually crossing off something from my handwritten to-do list. I did mention I have a 4 year-old living in me, didn’t I? 🙂

Haba na haba hujaza kibaba.

I’m thankful for small reminders to be faithful about the small things. Because it’s funny how in the long run, you realize they were never really as small as they initially seemed.

For out of tiny planted seeds, come great oaks of faith.