Liturgy: “I Still Check for Bed Bugs”

What is the King’s Liturgy? King’s Liturgy defines our experience together as a Christian community. It outlines the rhythms we celebrate with the Church at large: Scripture readings, Sabbath habits, and celebration of Holy Days and historical events.

This Week’s Lectionary Readings
Isaiah 65:17-25
John 4:43-54
Psalm 30:1-6

This week’s liturgy is contributed by Rebecca Au-Mullaney, Editorial and News Director:

About a year ago, my husband Michael and I moved into a new apartment. After about a month, I started noticing a few itches on my arms, but I dismissed them. They weren’t too irritating, and I figured that bugs were more active in springtime.

Then I hosted a sleepover bachelorette party for one of my friends. (Michael wasn’t invited, and he stayed somewhere else.) The next day, my friend woke up with bites much worse than mine, so serious that she went to see an urgent care. The diagnosis: bed bugs.

I was stung with remorse and shame. Remorse, for having given my friend these bug bites a week before her wedding; shame, because now everyone would think of me as the girl with the bed bugs. No one would ever want to visit me again.

Michael and I called up our landlord, who had an exterminator come and treat our bedroom. The exterminator threw away our mattress and bed frame, and Michael and I relocated to the couch and spare mattress in our living room. We washed all our clothes in hot water and dried them at the highest setting (in the process ruining some of my favorite items).

We thought we were done. But a few months later, we noticed more bugs on the bookshelf nearest the bed. The whole process started all over: obsessively vacuuming and washing everything in sight. Storing our clean clothing in plastic bags. Sleeping uncomfortably in the living room. Finding another, stricter, exterminator to spray everything, again, and waiting weeks for the chemicals to kill off any stragglers.

I haven’t mentioned yet that we are expecting a baby at the beginning of April. As long as we were dealing with the bugs, we couldn’t get our home ready for a newborn, and I felt so frustrated. When we finally moved back into our bedroom this December, it felt like a resurrection. Finally, we could really clean and organize! We could set up our rocking chair and bassinet!

This week’s lectionary readings all deal with the themes of healing and new life in place of futility and loss. I’m particularly struck by the reading from Isaiah: “They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.” A few lines down: “They shall not labor in vain.”

I don’t know how fully I should expect these promises to come to pass in this life, but I have caught a little glimpse of Isaiah’s vision this year as the chaos and disappointment in my apartment have given way to peace and expectation. I look forward to a time when work doesn’t go wasted, when cozy homes won’t be upset by bloodsucking pests. Until then, I’ll still be checking my mattress every few days for bed bugs. You never know.