Conflict

Kinsey dances. She's in a dance group and has been for almost 4 years now. She's good, she has fun, and loves doing it.

She had a recital planned for this Sunday night, 6pm. But unfortunately, the venue where it was scheduled double booked us with another group and the recital had to get bumped... to 10:30am, Sunday. Now, I realize that for some people this isn't a big deal, but that's right smack in the middle of church time. Time that's very valuable to my family, and time that I'm actually paid to be doing a job, particularly on a Sunday like this upcoming one, where we're going to be having a lot of moving parts. And so I have to be at church. And miss one of Kinsey's dance recitals for the first time.

You know it's weird, growing up Church of Christ, Sunday's were sacrosanct. You didn't mess with them and you don't schedule other activities during the worship time. And I understand that this isn't the fault of the dance group Kinsey is in, and that they took the only available time that they had, but I feel very conflicted by this. I almost feel like I'm choosing church over my daughter. To which some might say, "Right on, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. And by the way, why is your daughter dancing anyway?"

I guess I make these decisions everyday. I choose to go to work and make money to support my family instead of staying home with my family and not. I play softball and miss a bedtime on occasion. I make choices a lot that affect the time I spend with my family. This one just seems to be more intense for some reason.

I hope at some point if Kinsey feels some separation from faith or from the church that she doesn't look back on this and think, "Oh yeah, and there was that one time that Dad missed my dance recital and went to church." I don't think she'll see it that way. I know she knows that I love her intensely and that I want to be there.