But through all the cleaning and prepping and packing, as it does, my mind has been doing a lot of thinking and drawing parallels and coming to conclusions. Something that has come to the forefront of my mind the most is this concept of the small stuff vs. the big stuff.
We all put off the big things sometimes. I do, at minimum. The mopping floors, cleaning all the baseboards, the huge painting projects, etc. etc. But you know what I put off more often? The small stuff. The packing a couple more boxes in free moments here and there. The keeping up with the dishes before there's a whole sink full. There finishing a small project instead of starting a new one. The taking five minutes to meditate...to read...to shower.
Satan has this insane way of making us feel hopeless. The "I haven't done it in several days/months/years, so if I don't do it for one more day it will make no difference." "Or I'm so overwhelmed with everything I don't know where to start."
So instead of taking a small step and putting another couple drops in that bucket of things we have to do, we just... don't. We waste time, we lose ourselves in social media for an hour, we look through a meaningless catalogue sitting on the counter, we stare at the wall, we start another project instead of finishing one that needs attention. Even if we just do one, or two, or three small things to put a drop in our bucket of "small stuff" each day; at the end of each week we have a dozen or more extra drops and at the end of the year we have hundreds or thousands.
What I'm really saying here is that if I/you/we sweat the small stuff.. if I put one foot in front of the other... even if they are small steps, the big stuff really seems more manageable. If I read a chapter every day, the test on the concepts seems easier. If I keep the house tidy, the deep cleaning doesn't seem so mind-blowingly huge. When I check in and keep up with my friendships, it doesn't seem like such a daunting task to call or know what to do when something catastrophic happens to them (or me). When I feel a little distance or detect a small problem between Jay and I, if I have the small conversation then it keeps bigger harder conversations from being necessary. The list could go on (and leave in a comment what situation it makes you think of for you!)
I want to be the kind of person who sees what needs to be done, and does it. I feel better on days when I'm closer to being that kind of person. And can you imagine if we had a world full of people who didn't freeze when they got overwhelmed, but instead put a drop in the bucket?
And here's Rory sitting on and falling into my massive pile of laundry, that happens to be my small stuff that was ignored and turned into big stuff right now.
Satan has this insane way of making us feel hopeless. The "I haven't done it in several days/months/years, so if I don't do it for one more day it will make no difference." "Or I'm so overwhelmed with everything I don't know where to start."
So instead of taking a small step and putting another couple drops in that bucket of things we have to do, we just... don't. We waste time, we lose ourselves in social media for an hour, we look through a meaningless catalogue sitting on the counter, we stare at the wall, we start another project instead of finishing one that needs attention. Even if we just do one, or two, or three small things to put a drop in our bucket of "small stuff" each day; at the end of each week we have a dozen or more extra drops and at the end of the year we have hundreds or thousands.
What I'm really saying here is that if I/you/we sweat the small stuff.. if I put one foot in front of the other... even if they are small steps, the big stuff really seems more manageable. If I read a chapter every day, the test on the concepts seems easier. If I keep the house tidy, the deep cleaning doesn't seem so mind-blowingly huge. When I check in and keep up with my friendships, it doesn't seem like such a daunting task to call or know what to do when something catastrophic happens to them (or me). When I feel a little distance or detect a small problem between Jay and I, if I have the small conversation then it keeps bigger harder conversations from being necessary. The list could go on (and leave in a comment what situation it makes you think of for you!)
I want to be the kind of person who sees what needs to be done, and does it. I feel better on days when I'm closer to being that kind of person. And can you imagine if we had a world full of people who didn't freeze when they got overwhelmed, but instead put a drop in the bucket?
And here's Rory sitting on and falling into my massive pile of laundry, that happens to be my small stuff that was ignored and turned into big stuff right now.
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