Uo-ta-Suraida-

That's "water slider" in katakana. On the next day, we went to an indoors pool, actually a room set aside for children waiting for their parents who enjoyed the various hot springs and baths of that resort. So the children's pool, altho' it's the type that flows around an island, is very small: no doubt, adults would find it TOO small. The drawing card for that pool is actually the slide. I think my kids used it twenty times! For it, you have to climb steps which, I found out later, lead to the top of the water slide which snakes OUTSIDE the building! It was free of charge too.

Sometimes, I wonder if we don't balk with God's sometimes-uneasy instructions, not realizing He wants us to turn our eyes from "small pool" comforts to "outside-the-building" unimaginable delights! And then some of us complain about the unexpected twists and turns encountered instead of learning to ENJOY them.

1. Unregenerate man can be satisfied with a comfortable life free of trials;
2. too many Christians think their aim is to attain strength to carry them through trials and overcome them; isn't it possible that God wants much more than that:
3. for us to learn to enjoy and revel IN them and what God can do THROUGH them?!?

An extra bonus: I have a back condition that can't take cold--even lukewarm--water so I hadn't let myself go in pools for three years; but because that pool was part of a larger hot springs complex, the water itself was very warm--I was able to go in! (Actually tho', I didn't really swim but stood in the pool while watching the kids shoot down that slide over and over again.)


Writer's comment: The above was written in 2003; my back is MUCH better now (2007), and I do participate in pool activities with my kids!