Becoming Real

In Margery Williams's beloved children's book The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed rabbit sits on a nursery shelf wondering what it means to be real. He asks the Skin Horse, the oldest and wisest toy in the room, and receives an answer that has echoed through a century of readers.

"Real isn't how you are made," the Skin Horse says. "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." The Rabbit asks if it hurts. "Sometimes," the Skin Horse admits. But he adds that once you are Real, you cannot become unreal again. It lasts for always.

How many of us spend our lives trying to manufacture an identity — polishing our résumés, curating our image, performing for approval? We believe that if we can just make ourselves impressive enough, we will finally be somebody. But Williams understood something that Scripture has declared from the beginning: identity is not achieved. It is received.

The Apostle John writes, "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are" (1 John 3:1). Our truest self is not something we construct. It is something the Almighty speaks over us in love — and what He speaks, we become.

You are not what you have accomplished. You are who He says you are.