It’s the Little Things

Confession Time: I’m horrible at budgeting.

Like really bad. It’s easy to sit down and figure out the big things like rent payment, utilities, car payment, phone bill, etc., but I struggle to properly allot for the little things. A t-shirt here, a stop by Starbucks (or two or three…), a trip to McDonalds on the way home from church, diaper genie refills; these are the things that get me. Fortunately, my husband is far better at financial budgeting than I am, so this is an area where I defer to him. However, I realized that this problem manifests itself in all parts of my life.

Time budgeting… I am habitually late. I have come to the point in my life that I have accepted this and I choose being late and minimizing stress over being on time and frenzied. It’s not that I don’t try to be on time, I promise you, I’m waking up hours before we need to be anywhere. But it’s the little things that add up— someone can’t find their shoes, someone else is pitching a fit about the buttons on their clothes, someone’s hair is a hot mess and cannot be seen in public, someone has to poop before we go. These little things add up to us being 5-10-15- oh just forget it- minutes late quite frequently.

While time budgeting is an obvious problem that anyone who knows me can see, my biggest struggle is emotional budgeting. As most people have noticed, “my hands are full”. I too have noticed this. On top of the regular stressors of parenting, we also have the stressors of parenting a beautiful child who has special needs and a life-limiting condition. It’s a lot to handle, so emotionally, I budget for the big things. I carry fear of the danger of colds, and the weight of responsibility as the care taker for all of our daughter’s needs. I budget for the patience required to navigate sibling rivalry, and to manage the emotions of a 4 year old and the frustrations of a 5 year old. I budget for the task of comforter for a breastfed baby who is attached to his mommy. I budget for the energy to keep a clean(ish) house with a revolving washer door.

I budget for the big things, and then I find myself struggling to find the necessary patience and calmness when I spill sticky medicine on the counter top. I struggle to relax when the baby poops up the back of his pajamas when I’ve just finished washing all of the baby clothes. I struggle to find the patience to act as mediator for the children when it’s the end of the night and they’re fighting over who got to the sink first (and they have a double sink). I struggle to stay calm when tears begin to flow from multiple children at the same time. I struggle when I look around the room and see dog hair rolling or toys scattered around the floor or 5 more dirty cups sitting on a recently cleaned countertop.

I’m not alone. I hear this a lot from other moms. We lament to each other about the “trivial” things like toys on the floor or our husband’s socks next to the laundry hamper (truth be told, that’s something many of my friends complain about, but I’m the chief offender in my home). We budget emotionally for the big tasks of being a mom, but inevitably we run out of something. We run out of patience for the child still learning to tie their shoes, compassion for the child whose week old half-deflated ballon has popped, sympathy for our husband who spends all day working for others and steps straight into the ring when he walks in the door.

But somehow, when we run out of the emotions we need, we still find the ability to pile on others that aren’t helpful. For some reason it doesn’t come naturally to just say, “Oops I ran out of patience, let me pick some more up and try that again.” We say, “Oops, I ran out of patience, let me pick up 5 lbs of guilt.” Or we say, “Dang it, there goes my compassion, instead of getting more, let me pick up a hunk of anger to chew on.” We run out of what we need, and instead of getting more, we take out high-interest loans on emotions with no benefit. Guilt has no intention of letting you go. Guilt has an ever increasing limit with ever expanding interest. Anger likes to move your membership to platinum level bitterness and resentment.

When I say it like that, it just sounds plum crazy. So instead, I’m clinging to God’s promises.

“God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.” Lamentations 3:22-24 (MSG)

And unlike me, God doesn’t run out of patience or compassion. It’s His very nature.