How do Christians, living a wartime lifestyle, handle the many opportunities they have to spend money in the name of friendship? Here's my current situation:
Jennifer has a friend who is fulfulling a lifelong dream of starring in a particular play in our local theater. To celebrate this, a group of this lady's friends are going to make a date night out of going to the show and then going to dinner together.
The tickets to the show are about $20/person. So, for the two of us to go, it would be $40. Add the cost of babysitting. And, add the cost of the dinner, which I'd estimate will be at least $25. This will easily cost more than $75 for a night out to show support a friend.
But, here's the real issue. There's always something to celebrate. We have two kids. If we're friends with 6 couples, and each couple has two kids, then there's going to be an average of one kid's birthday party per month. Plus, there's the one friend's birthday party each month. Plus, there's always someone's kid who is selling Girl Scout cookies. And the list goes on and on.
This all reminds me of a Seinfeld episode, Frogger. In that episode, Elaine is getting fat at work because of all the birthday cake. In a company with a few hundred people, it's someone's birthday almost every day. So, she claims to be sick, just so she'll have a reason not to eat the cake. But then they give her a get well cake.
So, do wartime Christians spend lots of money in the name of friendship? Or, do we act like the oddballs by sitting out so many social occasions? What is one to do?
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I think it is healthy and natural to support our friends. I think it is right to spend time with other couples. I think it is right to go out on dates with our spouses. I think it is right to celebrate milestone events in the lives of people we care about. Going to see a friend in a show is more about just supporting a friend though. Its about fellowship, relationships, a break in the routine.
ReplyDeleteThese events do not always have to cost money. And they do not always have to involve giving gifts to a 1 year old who won't appreciate it. For example, 2 recent birthday parties we attended asked guests to bring pajamas for homeless child instead of a gift for the birthday girl.
And you can't really complain about GS cookies. We buy cookies every month anyway. So getting them from the GS isn't really that big of a deal.