Recently (as in the past six years) I have rediscovered a whole new genre of literary masterpieces. I’ve enjoyed many-a-book throughout my life: Great big picture books as a child, the works of Emily Bronte, Jeanette Oke and Charles Dickens as a teenager, and in adulthood it has become more and more about paperback volumes on Spiritual development, marriage and parenting. However, these days I have three pairs of eager little ears that love to sit and listen to the adventures of the Pokey Little Puppy and the Hiccupotomus. Through the eyes and ears of my own children my senses have been awakened once more to the profound lessons and deep undertones that many of these books hold within their colorful pages. One book in particular has caught my attention as of late: The Velveteen Rabbit.
In my quest to be real and authentic, I have committed myself to bare my soul, my thoughts, my ups and my downs. For quite some time I figured that being real simply meant being Amy, without apology. But for a reason far beyond my understanding, in my attempt to be real there has been a great deal of personal struggle and adversity. More often than I care to confess, I find myself pleading with God to lift the burden from my shoulders. I get tired, weary and oftentimes feel lonely walking this journey with God. I compare myself – my life – to that of others, and from the outside looking in, their lives seem close to picture perfect. I only see smiles, never tears. I only hear how wonderful and miraculously perfect circumstances are turning out for them, not the underlying stresses of life that most of us face on a day-to-day basis. As I compare myself, I end up swirling like a whirlpool - down, down, down - into a state of “woe is me”. While others seem to have discovered the secret to success and good living, I am still grappling with the challenges God has allowed to invade the path I walk. What I fail to understand, however, is that it is in these difficult seasons of life that I am ever so slowly becoming real.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes.” For he was always truthful, “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand…”
…The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.
- Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit
If only we could become real without the pain, without our beautiful velveteen coats being rubbed bare and worn through. If only we didn’t have to lose something in the process. Yet, there is always a cost that comes before greatness. Before a baby is born there must be labor, and labor is painful. If I/we truly long to become something more than what we are, we must be willing to pay that price. The question being then: Is the cost of becoming real too high?
Interestingly enough, it is only those who don’t break easily that eventually become real. If with each obstacle we face we find our spirit, our passion and our faith unbroken, we have come one step closer to being real - one step closer to bearing the likeness of Christ. I concede that in the midst of trial I question my ability to hold up under its pressure. My faith becomes so small that I am certain I am going to crumble to pieces like a saltine cracker crushed in the palm of a hand. Yet, emerging from the darkness and surveying what is left of me, I realize I am fully intact and drawn closer to God. Evidently He must have a great deal of faith that I will not buckle under the pressure of hardship. Outwardly I may look shabby and the stuffing might be falling out, but I am that much closer to being what I so dearly long to be…Real. And there is no cost too high for what lies beyond these temporary circumstances.
As we move towards becoming real, let us not forget that God is with us throughout the journey even if, at times, He seems distant and silent. He desires to see our lives unfold into the beauty that He intended from our conception. He longs, more than we do, to see us come through each tough time more real than we were when we started. He is the One loving us so much that our hair rubs off and our coats become shabby. He is the One who can make us Real, but we have to be willing to relinquish our grasp on our preconceived images of what real is. It is not about avoiding the pain and discomfort of the process, but about living our lives through the pain…through the discomfort. Realness doesn’t just happen. Realness – Realness - is a process of becoming.
"God does not give us overcoming life: He gives us life as we overcome.”
- Oswald Chambers