Wanting to be the ‘fun house’ to visit, I searched the internet for a new and different toy for the water. After a few days, I found this amazing inflatable flamingo! It held 6 adults, a built-in cooler, this thing was 10 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 14 feet long. Huge!
I talked my husband into taking a trip to the local warehouse store and checking it out. Once we got there, we found the monster inflatable hanging from the rafters (you couldn’t miss it!). After inspecting the ginormous bird, we noticed that the built-in tie-off loops were plastic, and the big bird would fly away in one of the big winds that we often experience on the lake. We needed to find a plan B.
Right next to the boxed-up flamingos was this huge box, that I could fit inside. This box contained a ‘floating oasis’. This fun toy is a neoprene, 9 feet long, 6 feet wide rectangle that was 1.5 inches thick! It rolls up like a sleeping bag, and we could take it on the boat anywhere on the lake and put it away on windy days. It had a metal eyelet to attach an anchor to wherever we put it. This seemed to check off all the boxes. There were only 3 in the store, so without a second thought we struggled to get the 6 foot tall box to the register. It wasn’t until we were pushing and pulling the cart in the pouring rain through the parking lot that we realized that we weren’t in the SUV, but we had bought the 2 door sedan. We tried laying down ALL of the seats, rolling down the windows, taking the Floating Oasis out of the box, but there was no way the amazing new toy was going into the small car. A fellow shopper strolled up and said, “Someone didn’t do their math!” We all had a good laugh, then this ‘good Samaritan’ offered to take the Oasis home for us. We were 20 minutes from our house. We thanked the kind man but told him we could not take him out of his way. As we talked, this sweet man lives less that 2 miles from our house. After he insisted, we threw the wet oasis into the back of our new friend’s pick-up truck and helped him load his groceries. He told us to lead the way to our place. Somewhere along the way, our new friend passed us, and told us to follow him. What could we do… he had our Oasis. We followed him to a local liquor store. He ran inside to stock up… for what I’m guessing was the next 2 months. Back on the road, he followed us to the house. Once home, our new friend wanted a tour of our backyard to see where we were going to put the Oasis.
Blessing others is such a great gift, not only to the people that are receiving the blessing, but also for those blessing others. The wisest person wrote give someone a drink, they will have… something to drink, but it’s the one that gives a person a drink, he will be improved, enhanced.
“A generous person will be enriched, and the one who gives a drink of water will receive water.” Proverbs 11:25
Not only were we bless beyond measure, but we also learned that day that we need to remember to allow others to bless us. Sometimes we rob others the joy and blessings they receive by allowing them to bless us. Although in Acts 20:35 that Jesus told us it is more blessed to give than receive, sometimes we need to let people do things for us. My husband’s new friend was also blessed that day… even though he was blessing us by taking our float home for us.
