Changing the bedding

For years, I changed my bedding twice a week.
Friday and Monday or Tuesday.
I like clean sheets.
Al liked clean sheets.
So I changed them often.

Recently, I began working outside my home for the first time in a couple years.
Long hours.
So I began looking for things to cut back on at home.
Changing the bedding twice a week seems foolish in a bed for one.
So I went to once a week, on Saturday.

And you know, it makes a difference!
I really didn't anticipate that I would notice all that much.
After all, it's just me in there.
But I do!

Even though I make my bed every morning,
clean sheets are smoother, nicer to lay between.
Even though I bathe every night before bed,
clean sheets smell fresher.

And this morning, after spending much of
the last two days and three nights in my bed,
the bedding smelled sick.
You know what I mean,
that sour smell of illness.
It was very unpleasant.

It made me think of life.
Hanging on to things that need to be changed. 
Things making me sick.
Things beginning to stink.

Sometimes they're big, complex things.
Sometimes they're small, simple things.
But they make a difference either way.

God has taken advantage of my more tender heart,
my lack of well maintained walls,
during the last couple days of illness.
He has shined light in areas of my heart I have kept firmly closed off.
It has been very revealing.
And hard.

Once I'm well and not so emotional,
there will be some decisions to consider,
some changes to be made.

I think I may at last be ready to get rid of the smell of illness
and begin reveling in the freshness of clean sheets.