How a mermaid made me seek God more...

This past week my entire family took a trip to Surfside Beach, SC.   After 16 hours in the car with 2 little kids…  we were going to make the trip worthwhile.  We met my parents and sisters and their families there.  IT was great.  The first day, Sunday, was the perfect beach day.  We went out and spent all day on the beach playing and building sand castles.  Monday rolled around and it was overcast and rainy. 

The minute we got within 2 hours of the beach, Ripley’s Aquarium had billboards all over advertising their “live mermaid show”.  My girls LOVE mermaids.  My kids are 3 and 5 and have a small obsession with the little mermaid, and any mermaid or fairy show on Netflix.  The girls begged to see a mermaid, so on the yucky day, we loaded up and went over to the Aquarium.  After we waited in line and paid to get in, we asked when the mermaids were coming.  Their response was, “they are only here on Saturdays and Sundays.”  The poor lady at the other end of the ticket counter, you don’t tell a momma that her kids aren’t going to get to see mermaids when that is the WHOLE reason you drove the 30 minutes to the Aquarium.  I was MAD.  We spent the day there; I was mad and refused to enjoy myself, grumbling at every opportunity.  My kids were sad that they didn’t get to see a mermaid.  Since we are not going to be at the beach for a while, I started looking everywhere for any attraction that had live mermaids.  I found a restaurant that advertised them, I called and the mermaids would be there Friday, our last day there.  (There was the bonus of it being at an all you can eat seafood and crab leg buffet.) 

We were nervous about telling the girls about the mermaids since we didn’t want to disappoint them again.  So we looked at the ocean for them.  Their cousin, the only boy in the group, kept telling them that mermaids were not real.  Okay, so mermaids aren’t real, but to my girl’s they are and I don’t see a whole lot of harm in letting them believe that they are for now.  So their cousin was telling them that they were fake, we were trying to spot them in the ocean and we had a great time playing, going on helicopters, to Midevil times…  it was a full and exciting vacation.  Friday rolled around and it was the perfect last day on the beach. 

Morgan the Mermaid

We got the kids in for their naps and then dressed them and did “magic mermaid makeup” and went to the restaurant.  The mermaid came out with gold fins and top and talked with the girls, gave them beads, took pictures with them, was so sweet.  They got back to the beach house and they had to tell their cousin that mermaids were real!  We showed the 9-year-old the picture and his response was; “oh, I thought they were fake.”

By one small thing, his whole perception changed.  Mermaids were o longer fake, they were real to him.  How often do we do that?  We hear or see someone say or do one thing and don’t question it, just take it as fact.  God made us curious by nature.  He made us able to have free will where we are able to examine and determine what is right and what is wrong.  A relationship with Christ is not about what someone tells us it should be, it is about a personal, actual, relationship.  It isn’t about rules and regulations, it is about diving into the Bible, finding out who we are, who God created us to be, seeking wise counsel and seeking His will.  Here are some verses about seeking God.  I suggest you read them today, let them speak to your heart and really seek reality.