Real is better

In my constant quest for fitness that gets harder with every passing year, I play mind games with myself that work for the most part. You may have even played some of them yourself. I convince myself that baby carrots are a perfectly delicious snack food and I would much rather have them than say the extra cheesy goldfish that my children are eating. They are roughly the same color and size but that's about it. Funny, my kids always ask me for some baby carrots! They somehow have the idea that whatever I am eating must be better! In this case they would be very mistaken. I've also convinced myself that 100 calorie mini fudge stripped cookies are very satisfying and every bit as good as the regular fudge stripped cookies. Well, I happened on a box of See's candies from my anniversary and decided I should go ahead and eat one since I'd had the box since my anniversary in December. Well, my taste buds went Kapow! as I bit into the rich chocolate truffle. I realized right then and there that real is better. Real is amazing. Real cannot be duplicated. I love real! Now I know why Coke is the Real thing, or it was for a long time.

This got me thinking about other wonderful real things like relationships. There is nothing better than knowing a person for who they really are and being known for who you really are. It says that you both feel safe to be yourself. Likewise, there is nothing worse than a relationship that leaves you constantly wondering who they are and where they stand. I'm currently in one of those relationships with my middle school aged daughter who has entered the relationship abyss. While I realize that she can't give me what she doesn't know herself and that this is normal to some extent for the middle school years, it doesn't make it any easier. Especially for someone in love with real! I am not good at faking, not at all. I don't even like dyed hair, although I reserve the right to change my mind.

I am encouraged that two of my offspring successfully made it to the other side and we enjoy wonderfully close and real relationships today.  I am also encouraged that I have a real relationship with Jesus Christ who is the Master of Real. He not only knows me better than anyone, He longs to have a real relationship with me.


For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb... You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways, Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely O LORD.  Psalm 139 


Now that's what I call knowing someone!