Becoming Real

Wanted to pass along a great email from Kristen, she is responding to the question at our last gathering. What is a story that you come back to.

“Hi Adam – After you asked our question last week, I couldn’t start talking fast enough. My book is definitely the Velveteen Rabbit…I love it so much that I have my copy from growing up (it’s in my closet at my parents house), a copy here (just in case) and a copy downloaded on my ibooks (for a quick fix). Almost anyone I know who has a baby, I buy them a copy. Last year at Kohls, you could even get a stuffed rabbit to go with the book. It was the best present! It is this part that I can’t get enough of:

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “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?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, 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,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who 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.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

I’ve realized over the past few years of my life, that the Skin Horse is absolutely right. It takes a long time to become real and unconditional love. I’m not saying I haven’t felt loved in the past, but I know wanting different types (more positive) loves in my life – I have left my comfort zone. I found New City, I’ve gone through counseling on multiple levels, learned to love myself for who I am, and through all this, learned that now that I am real, I don’t mind being hurt. I am not perfect and neither is anyone around me. We are still loved, though.
I could go on and on, but I am so grateful to be loved by God unconditionally and finally real.”

Thanks so much for sharing Kristen.
I love that God is making us real for always.

Adam