Passions Pursued

It's seems a bit surreal to be cooking dinner to a live harp concert, especially when I'm frying up Mexican. Avonlea has taken lessons for three weeks now. She loves it. She played for an hour last night and put everyone but Rowan to sleep.

I was not prepared for the amount of comments and questions that I received due to the "passion" post. There's a lot of good thinking out there and here are some of the ideas I gleaned.

First, several people told me that the things they were passionate about as children were what they actually ended up pursuing, in some form or another, later in life. This was true in my case as all those dance lessons enabled me to teach for the last 15 years.

Second, care must be taken that one child's passion doesn't drain the family's time or money in a way that makes siblings resentful.

Thirdly, when in doubt, wait. True passion is interwoven in the soul of who God made us. It's the song in our hearts on repeat. If your child's passion is legitimate you will hear the refrain again if the time is not right now. I am so glad I waited those two years before I let Avonlea play the harp. She is a much better musician now so it came much more naturally to her. She is also more responsible and takes care of her things better now than she did at eight.

I think at the heart of all this is the love we have for our children and our desire to see them become who God created them to be in Him and through Him.

And for my friend whose son's passion is learning to make bombs.........that could be surreal as well.

PS Speaking of songs on repeat, I once ate a whole Thanksgiving dinner to "Feeling Groovy." I didn't realize the repeat button was on till dinner was over! (Weren't my parents saints?)