“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 often happen 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 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.”

We have the great privilege of working with college students. While I wouldn’t trade our calling for the world, it can be challenging sometimes for me to interact with fresh-faithed, prime-of-their-life, beautiful, in-shape college girls. Challenging only because I find myself comparing my well-worn, patchy faith with their conquer-the-world faith. Seeing their energetic personalities and their well-toned bodies makes me take double-takes at my tired momma-self and my more squishy body.

Compared to these young ladies who are fresh-out-of-the-box I feel like a Velveteen rabbit. But then I remember that all the loose ligaments, all the patched up prayers, all the physical and spiritual dents and dings I carry around with me now are proof of being loved greatly. I remember that I am in the process of becoming Real.

Anne Lamott shares a similar sentiment in her book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.

“Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life – it has given me me. It has provided time and experience and failures and triumphs and time-tested friends who have helped me step into the shape that was waiting for me. I fit into me now.”

My favorite word in the New Testament is the Greek word ginomai, which means to become. It is a process word, not a product word. Ginomia gives me hope; it reminds me that God is a God of a process and that we are all works in progress. Ginomai reminds me that I am deeply loved by my owner, that I have been bought at a great price and that somehow, against all odds, there is a God who sees me all unraveled and yet loves me still. He is making me Real, making me into the one He has created me to be in Him.

And, in the words of a wise Skin Horse, “Once you are real, you can never be ugly.”

Here’s to the Real One who is making us Real.