Tough Words

Pillars, Sketches, & Bottles

Author

Sandra Shaw
December 03, 2025

“That’s tuff.” Gen-Alpha translation? That’s impressively cool. Running into a telephone pole in a cross country race is anything but. Yet the comeback? Still placing after the mishap? The test through time? That’s tuff.

“I still finished 2nd 😁 “

Sometimes you just have to activate your inner ninja.

“My writing table”

Yuko Shimizu sketched “Hello Kitty” on her lunch breaks. Sanrio rejected the art as too childish. 47 times Shimizu got a “NO”. But, in 1974, the company rolled the dice on a coin purse. It sold out. Enter today’s 80 billion dollar empire. Never give up on your vision!

@pubity

I’m convinced there’s a certain minerality to resilience. Minerals are formed by a natural process, not in a lab. Even the atoms keep going. They repeat in a 3D pattern. That’s what makes the core solid.

British & Exotic Mineralogy

All 2,242 of James Sowerby’s illustrations from his compendium of knowledge about mineralogy in Great Britain and beyond published between 1802 and 1817 and arranged by color.

www.c82.net/mineralogy/?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_EJ7Xcbk4SGWnOVvAYFgfXFs9mlh3lGxhqnLqFuA83KHLS_vIFOg55827es6O5ms70IGx-PJpdtEtiKHFW_ZMOZ-hUdg&_hsmi=389708171

Minerality also refers to the sensory experience of wine: its texture, aroma, and origin. There is an endurance that resonates through weathering elements over time. Case in point? A message in a bottle from WORLD WAR I (1916), recently discovered on an Australian beach. Experts say the bottle may have spent a century buried under sand dunes before its reveal.

Messages in bottle written by World War I soldiers in 1916 found on Australian beach: "Absolutely stunned"

Inside the glass were cheerful letters written in pencil by Privates Malcolm Neville, 27, and William Harley, 37, dated Aug. 15, 1916.

www.cbsnews.com/news/messages-bottle-world-war-i-soldiers-found-australia-beach/?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&user_id=66c4c6935d78644b3ab73654

❝

“Sand may sink, but grit rises.”

Sandra Shaw

“Dig in”

I believe essence triumphs over external. Yes, the surface may give, the noise may crescendo, but heart and soul live on. The scriptures describe the Holy Spirit. “I will graciously give you a new, tender heart, and put a new, willing spirit inside you. I will remove your hard heart of stone and give you an obedient, responsive heart instead.” (Ezekiel 36:26/TPT)

Jesus’s love put Him on the cross. That same love rose in resilience—over death. It’s supernatural, paradoxical, and powerful. Have a profoundly “tuff” week! 😄 

 

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