Tender Mercy

About a month ago, Bentley got invited to the birthday party of his friend Liam, whose mother was Bentley's soccer coach.  We adore their family and I am excited to (hopefully) become family friends with these people.  So my heart fell when I saw that the party was being held on a Sunday.  And it was being held at some sort of Urban Exercise place that sounded particularly unSunday-ish to me.  I pointed this fact out to Bentley quickly (no sense in letting him get his hopes up) and said that I wasn't sure this was something we could do, but that Daddy and I would discuss it later.

I wasn't 100% set on telling Bentley he couldn't go.  We've never had to deal with this before, and I wanted time to figure out my thoughts on the matter.

But before I could do that (or discuss it with Craig, as promised), we all talked as a family about what it meant to keep the Sabbath day holy.  And Bentley announced, sadly, that he wouldn't go.  I felt sorry for him, and also proud of him for making a hard decision like that.  To make it up to him, we promised that we would take him and Liam to one of those bounce houses some other day.

So that was done.  I sent Liam's mother, Marie, an email explaining that we wouldn't be able to make it.  (I didn't bother saying why.  I know that they're Catholic, and figured I didn't need to act like I was trying to out-righteous them or something.)  But even without me saying a word, Marie called me and explained how sorry they'd been to schedule the party on a Sunday!  She said they wouldn't normally have done that, but the venue was booked through January except on that particular Sunday and they'd hated to wait so long.  But she was regretting that decision.

That Sunday came.  And it began snowing.  And it snowed a lot.  And lo and behold, we got an email from Marie saying that due to the weather, the party was postponed until Saturday, January 11th!

So Bentley is very excited to go to the party today.

And I'm very thankful that my little boy was willing to make a hard decision like that.  And I'm also very thankful that he'll get to go to the party after all.  I know that the reward for making the right choice doesn't usually bring exactly what you thought you were giving up like this, but for a 7-year-old, it sure is nice when it does.

I guess I'll have to still take him to that bounce house, too, huh?