The Velveteen Rabbit...                                                          ♪  Ever I Love You- Tim Janis ♪

"What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day,
when they were lying side by side
near the nursery fender. 

“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 often happen to people who break easily – or who have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. 
Generally, by the time you are REAL, – most of your hair has been loved off – your eyes drop out – 
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."

- Margery Williams,
The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real 

- Donna Green artist Velveteen Rabbit Collection

I had a lil bunny, 
my friend that none could see, 
I loved him and I shared with him,
what 'twill or won't to be.
I didn't know my lil bunny
was telling me of more, 
I didn't know the love I felt,
was there to swing the door,
for when I would grow up
and seek the greater one, 
the one who always cared for me,
the one who's name is love.
Derry's Heart Poems © April 2013

The Velveteen Rabbit was introduced to me
 later in life to help me understand what love is. 
I had not experienced 'love' without it 
directly being connected to pain. 
So I hated the word 'love' and disregarded all that used it as 'liars' until I read The Velveteen Rabbit 
and began to separate my experience from the word 'love'.
Becky Hinman
♥♥♥
It may be we think of God like that,
ie we might connect Him with the experience 
we had with an earthly father
-- or some adult that hurt us...
But God is different, He is the true Father,
the true friend.
He is God, He is kindness and compassion
He is our Creator,  He died for us, 
He understands us, He is unconditional love.
We will begin a beautiful journey of forever love,
if we separate the pain we feel
 from our thoughts of God.
ie we can begin a new journey
 of knowing the love of God, 
His love is vastly different to
any earthly notion of love.

We are never alone, nor  neglected in the dark, 
for God, is there watching us,
waiting for us to whisper -
Lord Jesus, I want you.

Photos by Zoe

Celebrate endings - for they precede new beginnings.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Pretty in Pink photography

I learned that inspiration comes
into us slowly and quietly and all the time,
though we must regularly and every day
give it a little chance to start flowing,
prime it with a little solitude and idleness.
- Brenda Ueland

I leave to children exclusively, but only for the life of their childhood, all and every the dandelions of the fields and the daisies thereof, with the right to play among them freely, according to the custom of children, warning them at the same time against the thistles. 
And I devise to children the yellow shores of creeks
 and the golden sands beneath the water thereof, 
with the dragon flies that skim the surface of said waters, and and the odors of the willows that dip into said waters, and the white clouds
 that float on high above the giant trees.
- Williston Fish, "A Last Will," 1898

When I have learnt to love God
better than my earthly dearest,
I shall love my earthly dearest
better than I do now.
When first things are put first,
second things are not suppressed
but increased. 
- C.S. Lewis

If my life is surrendered to God, all is well.
Let me not grab it back, as though it were
in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!
- Elisabeth Elliot

To know how to grow old
is the master-work of wisdom,
and one of the most difficult
chapters in the great art of living.
- Henri Amiel

- Artist: Arthur John Elsey 'Mother's Darling'

- All the beautiful things photography --

Thursday A.M. April 24, 1851
Rode down town, with a load of children, and did several errands, came to the conclusion, that it is rather wearisome, to do errands, make calls, & take care of children, at the same time...
All my scattering moments, are taken up,
with my needle...
- Ellen Birdseye Wheaton

Spouts carry water, not produce it. Spigots are the tools, not the source. The valve might direct fluid, 
but generate it? No. We know this... Or do we? 

Through what faucets has God poured his love into your life? A faithful church? A prayerful spouse?
 Time tested traditions? A girlfriend in college or a grandma from childhood? 

God's water passes through many faucets. His gift comes in many packages. The treasure is not the plumbing or the box, not the container of the gift. 
No, the treasure is the Giver himself. 

God describes himself as the "fountain of living water" (Jeremiah 2:13) 
Thank him for the faucets, 
but don't trust them to nourish you. 
Thank him for the boxes in which his gifts come. 
But don't fail to open them...
- Max Lucado, Come Thirsty

- Daniel F. Gerhartz art

Happy people do not demand a lot from the world,
because their happiness proceeds from a place
deeper than the world can touch.
- Alan Cohen 

If the path I travel
Lead me to the cross,
If the way Thou choosest
Lead to pain and loss,
Let the compensation
Daily, hourly, be
Shadowless communion,
Blessed Lord, with Thee...

Lonely though the pathway,
Cheer it with Thy smile;
Be Thou my companion
Through earth’s little while;
Selfless may I live, Lord,
By Thy grace to be
Just a cleansed channel
For Thy life through me.
- Margaret E. Barber

Faith never knows where it is being led,
but it loves and knows the One who is leading.
- Oswald Chambers

As your faith is strengthened,
you will find that there is no longer
the need to have a sense of control,
that things will flow as they will
and that you will flow with them
to your great delight and benefit.
― Emmanuel Teney

The path of the just is like the light of dawn,
shining brighter and brighter
until full light of perfect day.
- Proverbs 4:18

Draw me close to You
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear You say that I'm Your friend ...
You are my desire
And no one else will do
Nothing else can take Your place
To feel the warmth of Your embrace
Help me find a way
Bring me back to You ...
- Kelly Carpenter

- Artist Daniel Gerhartz

When I was growing up I spent 95 % of my time in the woods with the critters and GOD
 and I never seemed to be lonely.
 I still love the woods and the peacefulness of it 
and the closeness you can feel with GOD.
Deb Mccullar

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