Monday, October 01, 2007

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 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 your 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.”


This excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit seems to be traveling around blogs right now and I can’t help but think of it as I deal with wounded women, broken people, my own brokenness leading the way….This gal calls me a 5 this morning knowing I will be awake and in our conversation I am blown away with how the hell did this gal get into my life?? I mean come on God I don’t know anything about the pain that she has and will experience. She wants to know You otherwise why the heck would she call me, that we even know each other is about YOU... She is making decisions that keep her from being real, the pain she has experienced guide her into protecting herself at all costs while hurting herself more and more with each one. She is so precious and yet hard, and I don’t blame, don’t judge her and yet I hurt for her. I want so much for her to find Your fingerprints all over her and here she is half way across the country, what can I do?
Point her to You, over and over to You and finding those fingerprints all over herself. It seems so futile, so out of my control, and yet it’s where I am and there is much for me to learn .... Not the least of which is how nothing is in my control anyway…….Pray for her please He knows who she is.

4 comments:

Jenn said...

I too have many clients who need to know this truth. I will pray for this woman, as I do the others. I love the Velveteen Rabbit. The pastor read this part at my wedding.

Bar L. said...

I'll pray for her. I think you probably are an answered pray of someone else's on her behalf.

karen said...

Prayers for the both of you. As Barbara said, you are the answered prayer on her behalf.

Micah Hoover said...

"...once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Since this passage is going around, I will try to limit myself on the topic, but I have to say I liked it a lot ... a strong reminder that God loves the things the world hates.

Sounds like this woman senses more 'realness' in you than most and is trying to be real. Hard to know for sure, though, huh? I will try to remember to pray for her and you also.