"What is real?" the velveteen rabbit asked the skin horse. The skin horse replied, "Real isn't how you are made, it's a thing that happens to you . When a child loves you a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the rabbit.
"Sometime," said the skin horse, "but when you are real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once, 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've been thinking alot about the trials, we as believers especially, go through in the refining period. I found this little exert from the Velveteen Rabbit to be profound in many ways. The idea that the Lord is working in us to make us real. This goes along with the quote on my facebook profile. "Now with God's help I shall become myself." And it's true, transformation does not happen right away even though we wish the Lord would hurry up sometimes. And yet even Christ had to grow up and be put through the grind of life before He could go to the cross in His final act of submission that cost Him dearly. And yet His heart was that through His blood we also could successfully walk through the "sanctifying" process of life. These last years I have been walking this path of obedience with the Lord because I believed He had called me to Thailand, and always Thailand was the goal. So when I arrived and felt like finally I was in the promised land life would lighten up a bit and the blessing would now pour down and yet I'm realizing there is as much uncertainty in my future in the land the Lord has brought me to as there was getting here. As I look soberly at the future I realize I am a very young girl who has set out on a rather large adventure. The horizon before me is endless and I feel very small. I am here yes, but now I wonder "to do what exactly?" I am thankful that at least for my first 6-9 months I don't need to know what's next just learn Thai, however trusting the Lord to lead me now that I'm here has become no easier that trusting Him to bring me here. I feel instead that what I learned in the valley is now being put into practice in the wilderness. I feel the sting this time of what I have left behind and even at times felt much like the Israelite s coming out of Egypt looking back and saying...we had it good in Egypt...and yet I know that my time at home was difficult. Why is it that the fear of the unknown makes us unable to trust the Lord and fall back in to complacency of what we know even if we don't like it. TRUST......I was just reading the book "Power of Desperation" by Michael Catt and one of the things he wrote made me realize how little I think of my Father's love and ability to take care of me. He gives the illustration that God is the potter and we are the clay and the times that He has to break us down are painful yes but we never have to fear because the hands and feet that push the wheel and shape the clay are nail scarred. How could we ever doubt the intentions of such a God to have the very best for us?
