"What is real?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before the 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're made," the Skin Horse responded. "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 that 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 have to 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, your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don't matter at all, because once you're Real you can't be ugly, except to people who do not understand."

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with this book, "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams. It was about a stuffed rabbit and his search for realness through the love of his owner. I hadn't thought about this story in a long time until I was reading a book with part of the above quote as the final line: "When you're real, you don't mind being hurt." I wish as a kid I would have understood the weight in that sentence, in that passage, in that book. Looking at "The Velveteen Rabbit" as a college kid, some kind of psuedo-adult, I had to laugh to myself at just how deep this book really is.

This book is not a Christian book. I feel that is important to point out. However, the Christian themes in the story are obvious. See, the Velveteen Rabbit is searching for realness, a way to not be a stuffed rabbit. In the same vein that Pinocchio boldly proclaims, "I want to be a real boy!" so does the Velveteen Rabbit, wanting to no longer be stuffed with fluff but full of life.

I have become increasingly aware of the truth in Skin Horse's statement, "Real is not how you are made." The Velveteen Rabbit is told he becomes real when he is loved by his owner. We become real when we accept love from our Owner, our Master, our Keeper. The difference between Velveteen's owner and ours is God doesn't grow to love us; He already loves us as much as He ever will. We don't need to gain His love, He just loves. As soon as we accept that, we suddenly become real.

Have you ever heard anyone talk about the moment they came to Christ after years of not being quite "real"? If you have had this moment, you may have described it as seeing colors like you'd never seen them before, as if you were color blind for the entirety of your life. For me, the moment I "became real," I felt as if I was more acutely aware of the world. Senses were just a bit sharper. It was almost as if I had discovered a sixth sense, a sense of the soul.

I understood Skin Horse as he responded to Velveteen's question, "Does it hurt?"

"Sometimes," he says, following it with, "When you are real, you don't mind being hurt."

I believe sometimes God gives people an acute awareness of pain. In a culture of apathy, of turning off our emotions and keeping to ourselves, we don't want to feel pain. But if we never feel pain, how will we ever know if we're real? And if we ignore not only our own pain, but the ache of the rest of the world, how will anything ever change? The Message Version of Romans 8:22-23 reads, "All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs." That is one of my favorite verses. It so accurately depicts the feeling you have when you feel the pains of becoming real.

Now Skin Horse could stop there, but Velveteen Rabbit asks if this whole change happens all at once. He then gives my favorite description of what it really is like to grow in the Lord throughout your life. "By the time you are real, your hair has been loved off, your eyes have dropped out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don't matter at all, because once you're Real you can't be ugly, except to people who do not understand."

It takes a long time. Once we become Real, we've been hurt and scarred, and we're bloody and worn. I've lost plenty of battles with both the world and myself, but God loves me enough to make me Real. And once you're Real, you can't be ugly except to people that don't understand. God sees every battle you've lost and says, "I love you so much that I won the war, so stop trying to fight this battle. Let me fight this for you." The battles we win are the ones He fights for us. Surrendering the fight, accepting His love and affection, is how we truly get rid of our fluff and stuff. It is how we become Real.