Summer is here and school is out, so the kids are looking for more to do. One thing they won’t be doing for the next couple of weeks, however, is riding their bikes.
You see, some bastard(s) stole their bikes at some point in the last couple of days (we were out most of Friday, so it could have been any time from Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. We assume that the parties who felt the need to liberate the bikes from our carport are the same parties who helped themselves to Nick and Steph’s bikes last Sunday. (Nick stored his bike here since he doesn’t have room at his apartment.)
Needless to say, the kids were pretty upset yesterday when they’d put on their helmets and went out to ride. These bikes were their major Christmas presents and were the first brand-new bikes either child has owned. They’ve taken pretty good care of them, all things considered, and really enjoyed having mountain bikes with multiple gears.
I’m not sure how we’re going to replace them at this point. Nick offered to pick up a couple of new bikes for them in a couple of weeks, and we’ll probably let him help us out, but he’s not going to shoulder it on his own. We need to find some way to scrounge up the money from what is a tight time of the year for various reasons (mainly because we’ve been aggressively paying off debts). Steph, of course, immediately started looking on Craigslist and Freecycle, but Nick suggested — and I agree with him completely — that we may want to spend the extra money for new bikes, since the kids’ bikes were new and were lost through no fault of their own.
I’m trying to maintain a good attitude about this. After all, like I told the kids, their mother and I believe that God gives us financial resources for many reasons, including ministering to others, and if someone is in a bad enough place in their lives to steal someone else’s bike then a) they probably need it worse than we do and b) they have to answer to God about it. The kids are pondering that one thoughtfully; they don’t entirely accept it, and I honestly don’t expect them to, especially since I flat-out admitted that that’s a hard one for me to keep my head wrapped around all the time. It did, however, get them thinking about the general wisdom of getting really attached to material things (and carefully picking which things, if any, you get attached to), which is a huge step forward.
I, however, just want to find the people who made my kids cry and introduce their face to my aluminum baseball bat. With all the love of Jesus in my arm, of course.
