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from people who love the Lord,
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For a random Thursday post, bedroom decor seems as good a subject as any. I’ve encountered blog posts which featured photos of beds shrouded in romantic light and buried in pillows of decorator linens, worthy of a Better Homes and Gardens cover.
This is not one of those posts.
The bedroom in my cozy home has a decor which can best be called eclectic. Faux-finish of navy blue frames the double window’s northern light, and navy blue carpet acts as magnet for every piece of lint in the house. The antique curio cabinet was my great-grandmother’s, and the antique rotary phone on one side of the bed is flanked by a cordless on the other. The doors and frames are all a light honey, while the furniture is gradient shades of dark mahogany.
The bed is, of course, the reason for a bedroom. Our four-poster used to have a lovely quilt, but it didn’t fare well with kids and was replaced by a hunter green blanket of wool. The foot of the bed has a Mexican blanket to remind me of Colorado sunshine back home, and the head of the bed is buried in pillows of warm colors to counter the chills of Michigan winter and summer AC. Across the room is the antique chair everyone fights to relax in and at the foot of the bed is a bench. All three are draped with children each night for bedtime prayers. If I occasionally sleep in after a late night of writing, I’ll wake up to cuddly kids in my bed as well—even better than sunrise birdsong for an alarm.
Clean laundry gets cleared from the bench when I tire of digging for it. The ceiling fan is dusted when it gets fuzzy enough. A vacuum is run when the lint starts to look like snow.
But making the bed is for every day.
A friend convinced me years ago that the bed makes or breaks the bedroom atmosphere. Everything else can be neat as a pin, yet spoiled by an unmade bed. On the other hand, the average mess is quite tolerable when the blankets and pillows are in place.
I so want the same to be true of me. The pretty professional portrait on my sidebar makes me look nice and decent. I think I’m fairly proficient stringing words together. When I publish a post, I want the ideas to look neat as a pin.
All the while, I try to be transparent enough for my audience to know that I have kids and a marriage and a life that’s not perfect. I lose my temper and yell sometimes and speak words unworthy of a voice. I think things that ought not be thought.
Even so, just one thing makes or breaks the atmosphere of my life—love.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
~ 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NKJV)
Everything else in my life could look neat as a pin, yet be spoiled by absence of love.
On the other hand, my average mess is quite tolerable when love is in its place.
Make it so, dear Lord. Please, make it so.
Your feedback is appreciated. Post to BuildingHisBody.com Comments or e-mail to BuildingHisBody@gmail.com. Copyright 2010, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
Amen, I pray that love shines forth from the inside out of me sis.
ReplyDeleteSo very, very true. May the Lord fill us with His love first so that our actions are done with love.
ReplyDeleteAnne, I don't have time to comment, but I just wanted to tell you that your link didn't work. You inserted mine instead of yours. I will fix it for you.
ReplyDeleteI love this room. I love thinking of your children draped all over for prayer.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I always will love will be those memories of the kids piling on the bed and pulling the covers over their cold feet. That was family.
ReplyDeleteI have the laundry bench in front of my bed as well ;) My poor bedroom is never clean. It's like a shifting tide that ebbs and flows with laundry, children who think my room doubles as the family room, pets, my husbands shoes who often walk out of the closet to decorate the perifery. It's the one room I can never win the housekeeping battle in. *It just occurred to me I might be missing the point of this post entirely* Oh yes, there's lots of love there too.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful post! And I love the decor of your bedroom. Mine has no decor, unless you count the laundry draped artfully across it. I just hope my love mitigates the mess. :-)
ReplyDeleteDenise ~ Rest assured, love, it shows. :D
ReplyDeletePatty ~ "Love first." I can't say that I make the bed first, but I agree that Love should most certainly come first, last, and all in between.
Duane ~ Ooops! Thanks for covering for me while I was out of town.
Snady ~ That's the same thing my husband liked best about this post.
David ~ Look to the Lord for what He would bring into your life now that such memories are memories. He loves you and has other gifts for you.
T ~ "Children who think my room doubles as the family room" is quite the apt description. I don't mind. I lock the doors when they need to be kept out. I want them to feel they have full access to me otherwise.
Rosslyn ~ Having met you, I'm not the least surprised that your laundry is "artful." I pile mine neatly as it awaits hangers, it's the last in the house to get them, and there's no hint of artful about it. :/
What a fun post, Anne. I love the pic of your room, and you give yourself far too little credit in home decorating. Every nook and cranny of your home is warm, lovely, and intriguing. My kids want a house "just like yours"! Alas, I have not your knack for homemaking...wish I did!
ReplyDeleteHowever, we have a lot of love. It's a cliche but it's true--love is what makes a house a home. :-)
God bless you and yours today!
Gwen, I'll graciously accept your words without protest. My revenge is your kids begging for that trampoline. And your own home has the love that makes it every bit as lovely as your own. I love being with you. :D
ReplyDeleteAmen, this is my prayer, too :).
ReplyDeleteJulia ~ Thank you. I pray again ...
ReplyDeleteMay it be so for all of us, Lord, every day, in every way. Please make love our defining characteristic because it flows from You.