Pink Plastic Flamingos and God's sense of humour

It stands to reason that the inventor of wit would be a great one Himself. Here's a fun example in the form of something that happened to my sister on Friday.

My sister's co-worker was cleaning out a storeroom and found a brand new, pink, plastic flamingo - you know - the lawn variety. As soon as my sis saw it, she asked to borrow it for a few minutes so she could menace another friend with it. Off she went to D's office and poked the head of the flamingo through the doorway, letting it just kind of loom there for a bit. She stood waiting for a little while, and then D appeared, looking rather haunted. My sis thought he was just being silly and overdramatizing, but then he asked if she had time for a story and pulled her into his office. On the way to work that morning, D had passed a funeral and had had a feeling that it might have been for someone he knew (I don't know why - maybe he saw friends' cars or something, or it could have just been one of those feelings) and later that day his wife called to tell him that an older gentleman from church whom they had really liked had passed away and that had, indeed, been the funeral which D had passed. D was understandably upset that no one had bothered to tell them that this man had died or inform them of the funeral time. In their church there had been a history of planting a pink plastic flamingo in the yard of someone who was noticed NOT giving offering. This was done in good fun, don't get me wrong, but D was expostulating to his wife on the phone "sure, I get a pink flamingo if I don't pay my offering, but someone dies and I don't even HEAR about it! Shouldn't I really get a pink plastic flamingo for this?" And that was when my sister just happened to stick the pink plastic flamingo through the door. :o)

So I guess we should all keep our inner ears open to those little nudgings and promptings we feel from time to time. Sometimes we are called to do great things, but other times we are called to deliver a message that's just as important, even if it does take the form of a pink plastic flamingo.