Sometimes it's hard to be a parent...

I have many friends who are wonderful mothers. One friend is especially good at teaching her children hard lessons. She has 3 wonderful children. However, like you and me, they sin too. Her two youngest children had begged her to sign them up for swim lessons to perfect their strokes before the swim team season commences. She did not want to do it because of the fact that it was a twice a week commitment in a somewhat obscure place to drive. They begged and she relented.
Once the lessons began, the children were not as thrilled with their new instructor. They said they wanted to quit, and she told them they could not quit because she had already paid for the lessons. In subsequent lessons, they would complain again about not wanting to go. Today the complaining came to an end.
The children were picked up from school and brought home to change into their bathing suits. The complaining began again. When the children came back downstairs, my friend asked them to go back upstairs, take off their bathing suits, and to bring her $25. Suddenly they began to tell her that the teacher is not that bad and that they want to stay in swimming lessons. When the came back downstairs with the $25, the Mama calmly told her children that they were paying her back for the swimming lessons that they were no longer going to take. She further explained that this is what it feels like to waste money. They begged to stay in the lessons, but she stayed firm as she had shown them grace all of the other times they complained. She loaded her children in the car, drove them to the swim lessons, and had them go in and explain to their teacher why they were not going to come back. It was a hard lesson learned for all involved. Sometimes our best lessons are learned the hardest way. What do you think?