Loved Into Something Real

In Margery Williams' cherished children's story The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed toy asks the old Skin Horse what it means to become Real. The answer carries more theology than the Skin Horse knows: "It doesn't happen all at once. 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."

The Rabbit discovers that becoming Real has nothing to do with staying shiny and new. It means being so thoroughly loved that your fur gets rubbed off and your seams come loose. From the outside, it looks like falling apart. But the Skin Horse makes a quiet promise: once you are Real, you can never become unreal again. It lasts for always.

This is how the Holy Spirit transforms us. Paul understood it — "We are being transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18). The process doesn't happen overnight. Our pretenses wear thin. Our carefully kept edges soften. We lose the glossy finish we once thought made us valuable.

But God is not destroying us. He is making us Real. And what the Almighty makes Real — genuinely, deeply, eternally Real — can never become unreal again. The shabbiness was never the point. The love was always the point.