Last week we discussed our inability to appreciate God’s gifts when they are right in front of our faces. My point last week was about His creations, and how we take for granted the extraordinary beauty of this universe He created for us.
Similarly, we often live our lives, oblivious of His daily blessings. We often lament on what we do not have, rather than rejoice with what we do. For example, my family has kind of (most definitely) outgrown the town home in which we live. We often complain about a lack of space, lack of storage, tiny yard…and the list goes on and on; when not all that many years ago, this home is exactly the home we prayed for. How often we do this! We pray, we get what we want, and so quickly forget how God answered that prayer! We are so quick to become greedy and ungrateful, when LOOK! Look what God has done!
Last week, most of us heard about Build-a-Bear, and the deal (steal) they offered. They were hosting an event called Pay Your Age, in which your children could pay their own age for almost any stuffed animal in the store. For my family that would have meant $10, $9, $5, and $3; a total of $27 for four different toys and a fun experience for my children.
Unfortunately, my children have a very naive mom, who couldn’t possibly imagine that people would begin standing in line for these bears, hours before the stores even opened. Silly me, I thought we could roll through around 11am, after my son’s soccer camp, and have some fun. But by 11am the local stores, which had only been open for all of ONE hour, closed down entry for anyone else. There were people in line all day, many people in line for hours and still turned away.
Upon seeing this information on the website, my friend and I promptly turned to plan B. We grabbed some prepackaged lunches, and took the kids to a local playground, where instead of standing in a line all day, they had hours of fun. I then went home later that day, and downloaded my complimentary $15 coupon from the Build-a-Bear website to use for a later date. Would that deal have been nice? Yes! Taking all four of my children there to create their own toys, on a normal day, is not in our budget. It would have turned an otherwise unaffordable event, into a great memory with my kids. I don’t fault anyone who wanted to get there early and wait in line to do that.
But, we made memories anyway. We had fun anyway. It was a gorgeous day with great company, and lots of laughter. What I found sad to see later that day though, were the amount of people who took to Build-a-Bear’s social media pages to complain. I would speculate that the likelihood of them ever offering up this deal again, is slim to none. Adults behaved in such ungrateful ways, when this store was just trying to do a nice thing.
~1 John 2:15-16