INTRODUCTION

My name is HONEY BEAR. Only my face looks like a bear. I have a beautiful  black and yellow  bee costume complete with antenna and transparent wings. I want everyone to  think that I am a Honey Bee. When I sing, I make a buzzing sound. Everywhere I go, I look for bee hives. I know that if I hang around bee hives I will learn all there is to know about bees. Lately, I am beginning to think I am more of a bee than a bear. Nanny told me that  I even smell like a honey bee. That made me very happy.

All my life I have heard that  bears like honey and I knew that if I looked like a bee and smelled like a bee and made bee noises,  every bear in town would like me.

I was so excited when I found my BEE costume. It fit perfectly and covered up my wooly fur. I felt complete as a bee and wore my bee costume always.

One sad day, the bee keeper found me loitering around his hives and he shooed me away. I cried for days. I wanted to be a bee. I looked like a bee, I smelled like a bee and I sounded like a bee. However, I had a few problems. The bee keeper made me feel unwanted.

I had not learned how to make myself small enough to gather pollen. I could not fly inside the hive. I made some of the bees angry when I tried to climb inside the hive and learn more about them. In fact, some of the bees stung my snout so badly that my nose swelled up and I could hardly see where I was going.

I tried to fly to the river to soak my snout in the cool water, but I stumbled and fell all the way down the hill. That day, I cried enough tears to  start my own river but the tears began soothing my swollen nose.

Suddenly, along came BLUE BELL BEAR. Blue Bell was a world traveler. She knew so many wonderful things. She admired my lovely bee costume and asked me if I was going to a costume party.

BLUE BELL saw right through my disguise. She had been my dear friend for many years and she knew what it was like to feel out of place some times.

Blue Bell understood about wanting to be someone else or somewhere else when life was painful and sorrows were deep.

BLUE BELL listened to my life story. She is my loyal forever friend. Good friends listen and love us through our tears and recognize the real us through swollen snouts and wounded, disappointed hearts.

After a while BLUE BELL said to me, “HONEY BEAR, you have a problem. (It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out!) Honey Bear you don’t know why you were born, do you?”

Of  course I didn’t know why I was born. In fact, I didn’t even know WHERE I was born, I only thing knew  for sure was that everyone in the world seemed to like Honey Bees. I had never been to school and I had lived my entire life wandering around the woods wishing I was a bee. (Actually, I learned I was looking for love in all the wrong places.)

BLUE BELL had been to missionary Kids’ school and she had heard about Jesus.

She told me that God had created me to be unique and special and God made the decision before I was born for me  to be a BEAR not a BEE. God had a plan for my life and my job was to find out God’s plan for bears not for bees.

BLUE BELL noticed that my bee costume was all muddy from my fall down the hill and she suggested I take it off so she could wash it in the river for me. Blue Bell had always been so kind to me.

Under my bee costume was a warm, fuzzy brown coat that glistened in the sunshine.

“Oh Honey Bear,” said Blue Bell, “I have never seen how handsome you really are . You should leave your costume off so that everyone can see the real you.

“Do you think so?”  I asked. “No one will know who I am. I’m very nervous to be without my costume.”

“Trust me’” said Blue Bell. “They will all love you as much as I do. Nanny asked me to find  you and bring you home for supper.”

Honey Bear rolled up his costume and followed  Blue Bell home. A warm welcome awaited Honey Bear. Several bears gave him a hug.

Blue Bear was right. Everyone immediately recognized HONEY BEAR and were so relieved that they no longer had to pretend with him that he was a honey bee.

Days later, Blue Bell gave Honey Bear a hug and said, “We’re so glad you are you. Honey Bees have stingers and all your friends were  nervous that  you would sprout a stinger someday!! Cuddly bears are much more fun to hug than honey bees. We’re glad that God wanted you to be a lovely, cuddly bear. You are a HONEY OF A BEAR TO US.  ©2005-MDB