The Velveteen Rabbit is a classic children’s book about a stuffed rabbit becoming real through the love of his owner. He is given as a gift to a little boy for Christmas and ends up in a toy room set aside and forgotten. The book says, “no one thought very much about him (the rabbit). He was naturally shy and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real…”

Between them all, according to the book, “the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away…”

I laughed when I read this because I thought mmm hmmm, Margery Williams Bianco just described people she knew. I imagined her seeing actual faces behind the “boast, swagger and pass away” line and the humanity of it all is humorous to me.

The horse explains that “Real isn’t how you are made it’s what happens to you when you are loved for a long, long time. It doesn’t happen all at once. . . You become. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily or have sharp edges or 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 these things don’t matter at all because once you are Real you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand such things.”

We adopted a tag line at the beginning of our program for teen moms, it reads “belong, beloved, become. . .” This seems to be the process; feeling a sense of belonging opens the door to feel loved and creates the courage to become everything you were created to be. Sometimes we feel forgotten. We are surrounded often by others who do not appear at all like us or to struggle in the way we do and by comparison, we always find ourselves lacking. We need to be reminded that unconditional love exists and that we hold inherent value because of the unique way we were created. These places we are called to are not for the faint of heart, “real” doesn’t happen often to those who break easily. So, here’s to those feeling lose in the joints and a little shabby today. The ones who are fighting to “get real” and loving unconditionally like the little boy. This is the place where we become the most authentic part of who we were meant to be because it reflects the one who both created and loves us unconditionally.

“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” (Ephesians 3:19-20)