Real

THERE was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.

There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit was quite the best of all. For at least two hours the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.

For a long time, he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even the jointed wooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with Government. Between them all, the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

--excerpt from: The Velveteen Rabbit, 1922 by Margery Williams

shaking my head...

Smh... I remember back in 2011 when all the little texting speech first came out. Oh the year heralded as when the English language died!  Nearly five years later, I guess it's time to break out the hieroglyphics.

I remember that SMH acronym took me the longest to figure out back then because I always read it phonetically: ssmmmhh-- like a half sigh, half groan murmur. Not unlike the the letters psh! Believe it or not, my "version" of smh usually always fit the context.

Friend:  Smh, all I can tell u is that teacher has a lot 2 learn...
Me: Ugh, sorry to hear that!

I was reading in Romans a passage that quite literately made me SMH:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
 
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.


And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

How can they do that?? Give up the truth for a lie? Give up a relationship with God for a relationship with a clay statue!? How can we do that? How can we get so lost in being academically "wise" that we become fools? How can we serve man-made constructs like money and "celebrity" instead of the most majestic King?

SMH. I'LL TELL YOU HOW. Sometimes you don't realize how good you've got it 'til it's gone.

"You mean to tell me he cheated on me... with that horseface girl?"
This was one of the saddest conversations I ever witnessed outside a bar downtown. A very pretty girl was being told the ugly truth by a girlfriend. No other way I can describe the moment other than witnessing straight-up heartbreak. I know I'm on the outside looking in, but I heard enough to know the guy was a total d-bag. I'm definitely not saying looks are everything, but it just seems like a sad state of affairs when you're in a relationship with Beyonce for land's sake and that still ain't enough.

Anyway all this to say, how MUCH MORE heartbreaking and unbelievable to forget the God of the universe that loves you immensely. Trading a beautiful relationship with God for a piece of trash. Romans 1 seems pretty appros these days with all that's in the news. People getting all up in arms and crusading about Target's restroom policy... and forgetting the GOD that has beautifully made us, and moreover MADE US the gender we are supposed to be! We (myself included) are getting distracted with the side issues and missing the point!

This was Paul's address to the Greeks at Athens to put things back in perspective:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

God, I'm so thankful for what an awesome God you are and that you're real and you love me. This blows my mind. ♥

Smh, well I don't know exactly how that happened... but that's got to be the most pop-culture Bible  devotional ever written.  Can I get an amen re-tweet up in here? ;)
Emoji Yikes face.

you light the spark

 in my bonfire heart. ♥

significance

Fun quiz

 

***How to tell if you or your friends are Arrogant!***
Fun, brand new quiz!

Since it has been the over-whelming trend in politics to say whatever idiotic thing is on your mind...
today I will offer the world a great service and only say part of what I'm thinking. ;-)

Something I don't understand and will never understand is why people love arrogant people so darn much!

Why would you love/respect/admire someone whose care and concern is only for their own pathetic self?! I just don't get it. Plus arrogant people are not exactly a barrel of fun to be around anyways.
Society feeds the lie that the Ego is great and to be worshiped... the "put yourself first" braggart mentality abounds... so common even among believers. I like what Einstein said better:

God, save our country. Save us from ourselves. Keep us from being wise fools.    

I can't help but echo the words of a man nearly forty years ago... convicts me every time I hear it... "And I know how I ought to be, alive to You and dead to me."

More of you, less of me.

In honor of Valentine's Day...

"The argument is this, that the differences between a man and a woman are at the best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest.  To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot.  Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman.  But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of “Beauty and the Beast”.  Every man has to find out that his wife is cross — that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard.  But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity."  --G.K. Chesterton: The Common Man

context

Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? --Job 6:6 

i remember pulling that verse out for a spin one time at a family dinner.... "supposedly 'proving' that are eggs are gross and the Bible even says so". haha yep. that didn't go so well...

i can't help but think of one other memorable verse i had to memorize in my childhood: "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." --Proverbs 17:17

frankly, i didn't know how this painfully honest verse was supposed to help me... my friends were nice and loved me at all times, but man oh man brothers are just put in my life just for causing adversity! ;p

i was reading proverbs 17-27 the other day and i guess i was amazed how many references to friendship i kept seeing:

Proverbs 18:24 There are friends who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 20:6 Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful friend who can find?

Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. 

i was walking outside in the cold frozen tundra we call the midwest and slipped quite dramatically on some ice, and a friend grabbed my arm to help me through the rest of the path. to me that is a friend.
my nasty bruise the next morning was good for one thing though, reminding me of this verse:

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Ecclesiastes 4:10

thankful for a few true friends and the best Friend of all.