FROM THE VELVETEEN RABBIT (one of my favorite stories).
Below is an excerpt from a conversation between the Velveteen Rabbit and the Skin Horse. It is truly thought provoking, and a good reminder of the realities of life and the importance of love.
“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.” [2]
The Velveteen Rabbit reminds me of a passage of scripture that is a gentle reminder from our Lord on how to live in this world. How can we “become” so that even though our outward appearance isn’t what it used to be, inside we can “become” more winsome, beautiful and pleasing to the Lord. It is from 1 Peter.
2 Peter 1:1-10 ~ 1Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: 2Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Confirming One’s Calling and Election
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. 10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters,[a] make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And so my question for you (and for myself) today is: Are YOU (am I) becoming? What am I becoming? Am I becoming more like the description we read in verses 5-7 above?
No one leaves this life in the same pristine condition as they arrived. Yes, even though of us who are “carefully kept” attempting to avoid the troubles of this life, get hurt, bruised, battered, and as the rabbit learned most if not all of us gradually become fairly shabby and like the flowers and grass of the field our former luster fades and we leave this world in quite a pitiful condition. But that is the outside appearance isn’t it? All the while the outside is wasting away, God (if we will allow Him) is making something beautiful on the inside and “we become“. So even as we grow old, worn and ugly on the outside, inwardly we are being renewed day by day for that glorious moment when in Heaven our youth, health and emotions will be perfectly restored as we slip into a heavenly body that will “become” new.
What a wonderful promise from God, and I’m making every every effort to confirm my calling and election … AND I look forward to receiving that rich welcome into Heaven. Not by works of righteousness which I have done, but by the mercy with which he has saved us.
Praise Him.
OP: 10.1.13
Angela Fish Chan 
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