Legalism?

So, Sarah is going to camp this summer. Real-live, stay over night, all week camp. This is huge.

She went to this same place for day-camp last summer, but spent the nights with my parents (Mimi & Papa) as they lived real close by. We hadn't planned on her doing anything like that, but my mom invited her when she realized that 3 of Sarah's cousins that are a year older than her would be going during the day and spending the nights with them.

However, this year, with them being gone, my sister and I had to decide what to do. We both finally decided that they could go and spend the nights there.

I also got the idea from her to have Sarah work to earn some of the money to help pay for camp. Diane's boys can go to a blueberry farm and pick blueberries and sell them. We don't have anything like that around here. So, Sarah is doing some extra things around the house to earn some money. For instance she pulled some weeds in one of my flower beds recently.

Yesterday, Mike told her that it would cost him $5 to take the car and run it through the carwash. So he proposed that he would pay her $5 to wash the car, while being very careful that this was not the version of washing the car that she usually partakes in which consists mostly of squirting him or Nathan with the water hose. This was going to be work.

She did a really good job and earned not only $5 from dad for washing his car, but also some money from Nanny for washing her car. Now, of COURSE, Nanny didn't have just a $5 bill. All she had was a $10 bill. Hmmm. How conveeeenient.

So, today, as Mike and I are waking up from a nice Sunday afternoon nap (Oh, yeah... it was nice. I slept for like 2 hours!), Sarah comes and asks to watch a movie. In response, Mike suggested that she instead could earn another $5 for camp by washing my car.

Do you know what she said in response????

In an oh-so-matter-of-fact tone, she says, "Dad, I thought we were'nt supposed to work on Sunday."

We couldn't help ourselves from busting up laughing.

So then, Mike comes back with, "Okay - then we can go out and just wash the car like we normally do and you'll get to play in the water & stuff."

Oh, she was okay with that... and Mike still gets my car cleaned and doesn't have to pay for it. A win-win I suppose.

So, are we raising a child that is just keenly aware of God's desires? Or are we raising a child that is becoming legalistic? Or are we just raising a child that's looking for a way out of working?

It's all a fine line, isn't it?