Settling for Good

The Glorious Table is happy to welcome Logan Wolfram to the table today. Logan is the author of the recently released Curious Faith (David C. Cook, 2016), which explores what is possible with a God who is unlimited, unpredictable, and ever-loving.

“There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” ~Nelson Mandela

When I moved away from home to go to school, I remember picking out bedding and setting up my dorm room to reflect bits and pieces of my personality. The dorm bed came fitted with a standard blue-and-white-striped mattress. It was more a Princess-and-the-Pea sort of thinly veiled comfort than it was a Goldilocks-and-the-baby-bear level of perfect softness. So my parents bought a foam egg crate to help take the edge off the discomfort of a cheap mattress.

My friend Cydney put a feather mattress on her bed, which was the softest and fluffiest bed in all of Perkins dormitory. She came to school prepared, and we all figured out pretty quickly that she had the right idea. So I asked for a feather mattress for my birthday the following year. Some other holiday or birthday down the line, I asked for soft sheets and pillows. Over time my bed became my own little retreat of cozy softness.

All through college and during my single years afterward, I perfected the cloud-like comfort of my bed. A fresh, fluffy mattress and pillows topped by soft sheets became a haven that brought me pride and comfort.

Shortly after I turned twenty-five and got married, my husband began to grumble about the squishy goodness that was my sleepy oasis of joy.

“This bed makes me so hot!” he said. “There are too many covers and pillows! The feather mattress hurts my back! Can we please get rid of all this extra stuff?”

In the early days of our marriage, I relented and gave up my castle on a cloud for the sake of compromise with the man I loved. But for nearly the next twelve years, I looked back on the days of my perfect bed and wished for its return. Let’s be honest. I nagged my husband for its return.

“I miss my squishy bed. Oh, to return to the days of pillowy softness. If only I could have my cloud-castle bed back. This bed is so hard.” Grumble, grumble, complain, complain.

Despite the removal of all my cushy happiness, my husband continued to experience neck and back pain, mostly resulting from old college football injuries.

Recently I announced to him, from the depths of my own understanding and compassion, most assuredly, that if his back was going to hurt no matter what, then I wanted my fluffy bed back. After all, I’d compromised for well over a decade. Now it was my turn to have a blissful night’s sleep. I know … so much sympathy, right?

This time he agreed, and five minutes post-announcement, I received an online order confirmation that my four-inch feather mattress would arrive in two days. Because when you’ve been waiting for almost twelve years, you don’t wait a single second longer than necessary to return things to their former glory.

When the mattress arrived, I immediately fluffed it and got it settled on the bed. I stretched freshly washed, soft sheets to cover the now-deeper mattress. Pillows were shaken and arranged. Sleepy perfection was within my grasp. I told my husband to stand back and admire it with me. I snapped a picture to commemorate the glorious occasion, took ten steps backward from the foot of the bed, and then ran and jumped right into the center. I slowly sunk deep into the fluff and slept like a baby that night.

Night two in my heavenly bed was similar in comfort, though, for whatever reason, I had a fitful night’s sleep.

After night four I awoke with tension in my neck and lower back. But I conjectured that I was probably just stressed about something or other.

The morning after night five left me doing toe touches and sun salutations in the shower to stretch out the increasing tension in my back. My husband also complained that he was hot with all the fluff cradling him at night. I began to actually wonder if the mattress might be at the root of my new pains. So I graciously offered to keep the mattress on for only two months a year during the coldest season. That way, if it was the cause of my own back problems, I’d never have to admit it.

But when I woke up after night six and could hardly move, I realized that even my pride wouldn’t be able to survive another eight weeks of misery that most definitely seemed to be linked to the cloud castle that was becoming my sleepy prison.

Standing in the closet thirty minutes after my husband left for work, I dialed his number and heard him pick up his end of the line.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Um … honey, I have a really serious confession. Something that brings me a huge amount of embarrassment but will likely bring you some level of deserved joy.”

“Is everything okay? Are you all right, babe?”

“Well, no. See, the thing is that my back hurts … like really, really hurts. I can hardly move today. I think it’s the feather mattress. I’m going to take it off. In fact, I know it’s the problem. I haven’t slept well in days, and my back hurts so stinking bad that I can’t even walk today without pain. Oh my gosh, honey, it hurts so bad.”

His compassion for my situation was quickly drowned out by hysterical laughter. “AHAHAHAHAHA! BWAAAHAAAA! Oh my gosh … that is amazing!”

But seriously, I couldn’t blame him. I was facedown in a plate of humble pie and knew it. For years I lived in a memory of something that had formerly been glorious. But after nearly a dozen years, six pregnancies, a couple of C-sections interrupting my muscle configurations, irregular exercise routines, and a body that has stretched and changed with the seasons, my bones and muscles just don’t seem to appreciate the things they used to love so much.

All those years I spent wishing that this part of my life would return to what it had been, living in the tension of what I’d had and still thought I wanted. Somewhere along the line, I became convinced that my life (and sleep) would be significantly better if I could just have it back the way it used to be. But I failed to realize that I had, in fact, been sleeping pretty comfortably for years.

Maybe for you it’s round about year seven, fifteen, or thirty of your marriage, and you find your thoughts drifting back to “the one that got away” in college. You wonder if life would be better had you stayed together. Perhaps it’s the dream job you gave up to stay close to family. Do you imagine being back in the place that felt so life giving to you for that season of your life? If only things could be as they were.

[Tweet “The truth is that no matter how we remember things, life happens in between. “]Often the stuff we spend years wanting back wouldn’t fit us now that we’ve become the present version of ourselves. Marriage even with “the one that got away” would still be hard, because life is hard. That dream job would one day disappoint whether it was nearby or far from family and friends. Houses in other cities still have expensive plumbing repairs. Friends will let you down no matter what language they speak.

There is no ideal version of our imperfect lives, no matter how perfect they seem to be in our memories. Still, we can carry the tension as if an ideal version of life actually exists. When we settle for what we think is best, we lose our curiosity for anything God may have planned for us.

Taken from Curious Faith by Logan Wolfram ©2016

Logan Wolfram would give you full access to her pantry if you lived next door. She is a plate-juggling mom and interior decorator turned writer, speaker, and host of the Allume Conference. She is a passionate leader who desires to see women live fully in Christ. Logan and her husband, Jeremy, divide their time between wrangling two inquisitive boys and a 175-pound dog named Titan. They reside in Greenville, South Carolina. She blogs at www.LoganWolfram.com

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