Yesterday, I was looking for a crumb-free place on the counter to put something. There was none to be found. So I lost my cool, and ordered my kids in the kitchen to clean up after themselves.

Then this morning, I literally shed tears of frustration because the counter top was once again crumb covered. (My kids thought their crazy Mama was acting particularly crazy today.)

Crumbs are hard for the Control Girl in me. A dirty floor? Not a big deal. Mail littering the kitchen desk? It doesn’t bother me. But crumbs? Ohhhhh… crumbs can make me crazy.

So here’s the thing I haven’t told my kids (but need to). I remember when I was single and living with a room mate. One day, she told me that we needed to have a talk. She even wanted us to sit down in the living room! ‘Oh no, I’ve done it now,’ I thought. What had I done? Left crumbs on the counter. My room mate said this was really hard for her, and she was tired of cleaning up my crumbs every day.

It’s hard for me to imagine that there was ever a day that I left crumbs behind, but it must have been so. Apparently, I didn’t see them. Or they didn’t bother me. Or something.

Probably the same ‘something’ that keeps my kids from taking care of their crumbs.

But if we hope for what we do not see, (A crumb-free counter!!) we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:25)

I sincerely hope the Lord doesn’t mind me claiming that verse over something as insignificant as crumbs on my counter. (Why does it always seem so significant in the moment???) But I suppose that as we ‘hope with patience’ in the little things, we train ourselves to ‘hope with patience’ in the big things, too.