Small things

I was reading in our church's issue of the Ensign this month, and I found one of the articles particularly interesting. The title, Getting Out of Debt for Good has some wonderful principles for people trying to finally becoming debt free. This brother who wrote the article talks about the technique called 'snowballing' where you pay off your small debts first and then use the money that you were paying to those small debts to the larger ones. In effect, you have created a snowball of cash, and the money you used for the small debts is put to use towards the bigger debt, and with that larger amount your debt is paid off more quickly. This is a new concept to me. I had never thought that paying off the small things would be smarter than dealing with a larger more impressive finanical burden. But really, it makes sense.

Monday I spent the evening at the pool with some of my favorite people and we brought up the term 'emotional bankrupcy' in reference to dealing with our children and how hard parenting can be sometimes. We laughed about it casually but then the tone shifted to 'debt consolidation of emotions'. What if the answer to dealing with our big problems is really dealing with the small issues first and THEN tackling the big stuff? That way you have more energy and strength and may I say faith to deal with the larger looming struggles that seem to plague us at one time or another. I have been thinking a lot about this. At the gym today the scripture came to my mind, 'by small and simple things are great things brought pass'. (ding!)

Fantastic.

I made the connection. When I work my hardest and doing the little things in my emotional life, I will be stronger and better and more able to tackle the bigger goal, the dream, the pot of gold, or even further, a pain or sadness. The momentum will be so great that I will be able to achieve my goals and find peace along the way.

I do feel like I am getting better at this...(perspective again) but then I have hard days like yesterday when I feel so frustrated or bogged down...and then I remember how much progress I am making, and how GOOD my life is, and how blessed I am...no matter what. My emotional and spiritual bank account need constant attention. I have always known that. But this experience has helped open my eyes that the little things do matter and are in fact, the key to the big picture.