Being Real

You might get tired of this subject, but I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it!

"The Velveteen Rabbit," by Margery Williams Bianco, just oozes with truth about "being real," finding worth in being rather than doing.

When you are "real" in front of God, you are just a small, helpless being compared to an infinitely powerful God, with no accomplishments or titles to commend you to Him. But for some reason, He loves you.

You try to matter on the outside, until you find out that all along, what God's been looking at is the inside!

It would seem that that is what this story is all about.

"There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really quite splendid...

He was naturally shy, and being made only of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everybody else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real...the Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out of date and should never be mentioned in modern circles...

'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're 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...'

The Rabbit sighed...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 he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him...

When he heard [the boy say he was Real], he was happy...almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into his boot button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it the next morning when she picked him up...

The Boy...loved him so hard he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded...he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because...when you are Real, shabbiness doesn't matter."

And you know the rest. The boy fell ill, and the rabbit had to be burned along with all his other toys, but the fairy came along and took him away to become truly Real, not only to the Boy anymore, but Real as a living, breathing Rabbit, for everyone to see.

"Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." 2 Cor. 4:16

"Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- in a flash, in teh twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the last trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will all be changed."
2 Cor. 15:52