"NOT A REAL BEAR"

Everytime I drive into town I pass the life-size statue of a bear standing in front of a seasonal fast-food place, and it reminds me of what one of my friends told me.

She was going through a dark patch in her life and had driven into town, her heart and mind burdened with sadness. Flipping the radio dial she came across the Christian station, Sound of Life, which was proclaiming God's love through its music. Although my friend is a believer, she had been feeling abandoned by God, and so abruptly she said, "God, if you exist and you really love me, I want to see some proof of it. I want to see a rainbow."

Now this was wintertime, and there was no chance at all she was going to get a rainbow. But after she done her shopping when she got back in her car, she spotted a picture of a rainbow. It was, according to her, a fairly sorry example of a rainbow, lacking half its colors and what it did have were upside down in the wrong order, but it was a rainbow. Sort of.

"Not good enough," she told God. And maybe too easy. "Let's try again. This time I want to see a bear, and not just a picture of one either."

And then, of course, she drove past the bear on the corner. Well, it wasn't a picture! But neither was it a real bear. And she said, feeling like a petulant five-year-old, she told God so. "That's not a real bear!"

Pulling up at the traffic light, she saw emblazoned across the back window of the pickup truck in front of her the words, "NOT A REAL BEAR."