Isaiah 40:4

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." (KJV)

Reflection by Christina Villa

While looking through a catalog of luxury bedding, I found myself absorbed by page after page of things you can put on top of your mattress to make it more comfortable.  You can get a mattress topper made of surgical grade foam rubber, or stuffed with feathers from the world's fluffiest birds. They're supposed to help you sleep by eliminating "pressure points," the places where your body comes in contact with your mattress when you lie down on it.

The problem of sleep deprivation caused by lying down seems to me especially cruel, if such a problem actually exists.  I have my doubts. After all, throughout history and around the world people have managed to sleep on things that aren't fluffy at all, like the ground.  Exactly how comfortable does a person need to be?

Maybe it's because I grew up in New England, but I think there is such a thing as being too comfortable.  The risk of too much comfort is not so much that you'll become decadent and immoral.  The risk is that you'll become afraid. The more comfort you acquire, the more you fear life's "rough places" and begin to devote your life to smoothing them out.  There's a direct line between those giant, over-stuffed reclining sofas with individual cup holders and a desire to move to a gated community.  

Life is pretty full of rough places, not to mention pressure points. But we're not put here to spend our lives looking for the most ingenious padding to put between us and life's every unyielding surface.  We don't hear it very often in our therapeutic culture, but sometimes the best thing to do is tough it out. 

Prayer

Dear God, let me see how comfortable I already am. Amen.

About the Author Christina Villa is on the staff of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio.

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