Opportunity

My children (a couple of 'em) started gymnastics. And I sat in the waiting/observation room and boy oh boy was my mind going a mile a minute. Some of the thoughts I had are similar to those of any mom. Others make me think I'm just plain ka-whacko.

Thoughts I think most moms would have:

1) "This is so cool! Look at those great kids out there! They're naturals! They're Olympic material! Any minute now their instructor will appear through those doors and tell me I have natural talent on my hands."

2) "How fun! I wish I had done this when I was a kid!"

3) "What a great idea this was! This is going to increase their coordination, boost their confidence, and hopefully not render them paralyzed from the neck down."

The thought I had that maybe makes me just plain ka-whacko.

1) "What an opportunity this is. This place is so expensive, what am I doing here? What makes me think my kids belong here? It's not right that it's so expensive - I can imagine all the kids in Las Vegas who would LOVE the opportunity to take a class here but can't afford it."

And then I just got depressed. Try to imagine, if you will, that this depression came right alongside the joy I was feeling getting to watch my kids do all this neat stuff with an expert staff in a fabulous setting. It's funny. I confess here that I will not spend money (even when I do have it) on certain luxuries - and I feel superior for it. "You won't see me carrying a designer handbag like that." "I'd never drive a Hummer." Whatever. But I don't think plunking tons of money down on "lessons" is any better, even if (maybe especially if) it's for my kids. You can't disagree that tons of materialism is justified if it's "for the kids". My question is, how... HOW do you draw the line? Maybe it's not the lessons themselves, in my case. But I realized I enjoyed seeing my kids have this pleasure so much that I would do almost anything to get it for them. Even put it on the charge card when our budget is currently more limited than usual. Why? Because they deserve it. Really? Why? I'm afraid it's a vicarious thing. I wanted things like that and never got them. Or maybe I just wanted my parents to want me to have things like that and never got them. I don't know. I do know this really isn't about gymnastics. And as much as I love my children to the ends of the earth, they do not deserve gymnastics. It's quite a privilege to take lessons in a place like that. And I don't know how to make sure they know that.

Tonight my thoughts aren't organized. I don't know what the moral of this story is. But I have known God long enough to know that when I dump all this at his feet, he's going to work through it with me and eventually I'll learn something. When that happens, I'll let you know.