The following is a post I received from a Facebook friend this week and I thought it held such a wonderful message, I wanted to share it.  It was written by Joanna Sanders who is a Villanova graduate and also a graduate of Moody Theological Seminary.

In one of my favorite classic children’s books, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, a young boy’s love made his toy rabbit “real”.  It is only in the rereading of this classic as an adult I realize the wisdom of this, especially in a world of so much hate and discord.

It is a popular notion these days to “speak your truth” and of course, in today’s world we find no shortage of folks willing to do that. When someone airs their grievances and complaints, we often hear praise for them “being real”.  It’s as if you’re not authentic if you’re not shouting aloud what you are passionate about.  We’re on a slippery slope with associating authenticity more with hate than the power of truth and sometimes silence, spoken in love.

And because what is actually true is filtered through so many layers, screens, outlets and personal emotions and perceptions, few of us know what is real and not real on many current topics.  As a believer in Christ, I know that I too have a tendency to skew what is real based on my own experiences and emotions which is why I understand the value of holding to the absolute truth of Jesus through the word of God. When we speak truth in love, when we act in love, it gives life, just like love gave life to the toy rabbit in the story.

Our world has lost sight of this simplicity.  We are all dying under the heaviness of the hate hurtling through the airwaves.  We’re fighting for our lives against one another, sometimes not even knowing why we’re fighting. The spiritual darkness that rules this world has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives. And we’re being deceived that this is freedom because we all finally feel an outlet to air the sin and discord that lives inside us. This is not freedom. This is not life. This is death in disguise.

Love gives life. God, as love Himself, is the creator of life.  Not once did God breathe life into being through hate. Never once. And I don’t know of a single instance where hate made anyone love more. The only value of hate is understanding its contrast to God. Hate is not making us more real; it is trapping and hiding our God-given abilities to love and encourage others to love.

Before my 90-year-old grandfather died he said he had learned one last lesson: There’s never any value in anger. My grandfather like the sweet, well-worn rabbit, had experienced enough of life to learn that only love is lifegiving. And with that, he went home to meet the Creator of that gift.

Today, I want to run like that sweet rabbit in the story that knew he was free because he had been loved. Come with me friend.  It’s a hurting world, but we can still be free. We can still be loved and we can still breathe that life into others simply because Jesus is real and He loved us first. And that’s the only truth that sets us free.

This message is a reminder of how God loves us unconditionally through the gift of his son Jesus.  This is how we BECOME REAL!

Patty