The Bedspread

            Over the weekend I painted our bedroom.  I’d been planning to do it for two years.  Anything can become a reason for me to avoid painting. I hate it that much. The up and downing of the roller, the tedious muscle-cramping repetition of brushwork. The preparation and clean-up. Exhausting just to think about it! Oh, I can’t paint for the next six months—too much scheduled, too tired, too . . .anything.  Excuses as diverse as the reasons for staying away from church.

            Still, I envisioned the finished room.  Who doesn’t enjoy the pick-me-up from a freshly-painted room? The old gets mundane, and that was certainly true of the green that had covered our walls. Insipid. That’s what they were—insipid green.

            Blue was our new color with white trim. But what color of blue? Not the cloud blue we always had when I was young. Ick! Not dark blue—we don’t want to feel like we’re in a cave. Something in between. The thought of the number of paint chips in that range became another reason to avoid the project. But I continued making plans.

            While on vacation two years ago I found a beautiful tufted white bedspread in a thrift store. I envisioned it on our bed, the centerpiece of our something-blue room, fluffy and pristine. What a bargain at only twenty dollars!

            At home I washed it and was tempted to put it on the bed right away to distract me from the insipid walls that taunted me. Instead I put it away, vowing to only use it when the room was painted.

            Last summer I found the color I blue I wanted in Midwest Living magazine. I shopped for paint, and clipped chips to the magazine, where they stayed for another eight months. During that time of procrastination, I found a set of white lace curtains for three dollars in another thrift store. They went in the closet with the bedspread.

            Finally, I drew a line. Labor Day weekend 2012 was D-Day—Do-It Day. No more delays. Inspired I prepped for the job and decided to do it a weekend ahead. As it seems is always the case, in spite of my excuses and complaining, the up-and-down, stroke-by-stroke job steadily transformed the room.

            The last thing I did was put on the bedspread.

Beautiful! For twenty dollars. Not the eighty to a hundred dollars they are new. As I admired the room, the bedspread was the centerpiece of my thoughts. God gave me a beautiful bedspread for twenty dollars to enjoy in my strikingly new blue room. I couldn’t help but connect my prayers to God with the bedspread.

There is something that I want very much from God. The wait seems long. It’s a good thing that I want, a request in line with what God wants, too. Of that I have no doubt. Yet the wait continues. Along the way however, I find that God does things for me, like the bedspread. They’re like love notes tucked into my life to remind me that he cares about me and the things that concern me. So if he cares enough to send me a bedspread love note, he cares even more about what I’m waiting on. And I am in awe that he would do either!

           
            Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 6:19)