The Couch

When the Man and I got married, we were given a hand-me-down leather couch. It was one of the few pieces of furniture in our little apartment until my grandmother passed on what she called a card table and we thought of as a kitchen table.

We ate our meals on that couch. We watched JAG on that couch (snuggled together so we could both see the laptop screen). And I waited out our first deployment on that couch as my belly grew larger and the couch sagged lower.

By the time the Man got home from Afghanistan, that first couch touched the floor in the middle.

When we moved to Oklahoma, midway through my second pregnancy, we finally replaced that couch with another one—and a matching loveseat—having moved up in the world. They weren’t the prettiest, but they were on sale and they were comfortable, and replacing the heavily fringed throw pillows they came with made a big difference.

We read books to our children on that couch. We watched Great British Baking Show (snuggled up with our now five children so we could all see the TV). And I waited out our second deployment and TDY after TDY after TDY as our family grew larger and the couch gradually lost its stuffing.

By the time the Man tore his Achilles and then the tendon next to it, sitting on that couch (for close to three months during his recovery period) was almost as bad as sitting on some kind of medieval torture device.

So before we moved (back) to California, we finally replaced it (and the matching loveseat—the original throw pillows and their constantly shedding fringe having been discarded many years earlier).

As Bee and I shopped for couches, I thought back to all the old couches had seen: long and late night conversations, guests we sought to love well, tears and laughter, new babies brought home. And then I thought forward to what was to come: teenagers with their long limbs and endless appetites, family movie nights, more long and late night conversations (this time probably not just between the Man and me), more guests we wanted to love well, inevitably more tears and laughter, probably no more new babies (I’ve learned not to say “definitely”).

I picked couches that I hoped would wear well. Big couches with plenty of room for sprawling teenagers and all the friends I hope they’ll bring home. Comfortable couches to welcome in those who need a safe place to sit and unburden their hearts. Couches that were pretty enough for my heart for beauty but utilitarian enough that if one of the kids spills something I won’t lose my ever loving mind (hopefully).

I planned for what I hoped was coming, even while remembering all the unexpected life changes the old couches had witnessed.

I look back on myself as a new wife and then, quickly after, new mother. I look back on the Man as a new husband and then, quickly after, new father. We were so young. We barely knew what we were getting into. Some days, it felt like we were just getting by God’s grace and the skin of our teeth. By the end of that season, the Man and I were not unlike the brown couch: worn and sagging and some days barely holding it together, but still holding precious memories near to us.

That next season in our lives, as we added children and grew and learned and found our rhythm, may not have always been very pretty (we both were shedding fringes from our metaphorical ugly throw pillows), but I look back and see how, in spite of it all, God still allowed us to nourish others and be nourished in turn, to be a safe place for others even while we learned to hollow out a safe place for ourselves, to not allow our limitations to keep us from serving and striving.

Now, with our next set of couches, I’m looking forward to what is to come next. New challenges, different seasons, opportunities for beauty but also for comfortable hospitality. But the truth is: we don’t know what is coming. We prepare and we imagine and we do our best to anticipate, but just like it takes one tipped glass of blueberry-spinach-banana smoothie to ruin a new couch, so the future can change.

What then? Do we not prepare? Do we not think ahead? Do we buy impractical couches—fashionable, uncomfortable ones that look pretty and won’t hold a handful of teenagers—simply because there’s no point anticipating what’s ahead?

Of course not. We prepare as we pray.

We pray that our teenagers and their friends want to be in our home. We pray that we are able to love others well with the home(s) we live in (and that we have the bandwidth to make ourselves available to them). We pray that God leads us to the right opportunities, the right conversations, the right relationships.

We pray and we do the work. We build relationships with our children that are more than telling them what to do. We invited people in for coffee and meals. We use our conversations to ask questions and listen well to the answers.

We pray and we do the work…and we buy big couches and wait to see how God fills them.