What is REAL?

Here at camp, without the distraction of the "real world" you tend to have more energy to devote on yourself and pay more attention to the things that perhaps you would like to improve upon, think that God thinks might be more important in your life at home than you have given credit to, and also you struggle. You tend to struggle with your own inner demons.

The things that you think about yourself that no one else knows about.

The quiet here is so deafening that all you hear is your own self-doubt sometimes. It can turn into something great. It can turn into your worst enemy. It all depends on who you turn to in those moments.

My hope is that after all of these years, that I will learn (at some point) to listen to proper voice and that these struggles will help me to continually shed the personality that I "put on" in order to become the person that God has made me to be. Whole and complete. Without doubt. Without fear. It will be great.

Well, that truly is my hope. But unfortunately; I live my life thinking that I need to look like I have already arrived at real. Totally put together. Not a care in the world. I have no issues. No problems. I am me. Me is fine. I look good. Inside and out. My house is clean, my dishes are put away, my kids are nice and polite and life from the outside looks "solid, sweet and what I've always dreamed of." And if it were, then wouldn't that fill me up? Wouldn't I be made whole if all these things were so good? According to the way I have been living, this has been the true goal of my life, not necessarily becoming "real".

How do I know this?

I just finished reading my kids "The Velveteen Rabbit" to put them to bed. And it sort of put me on my back. Do you remember it?

A kid gets a stuffed rabbit for Christmas, he loves it like crazy. He gets scarlet fever, the doctor says everything has to be burned...including the rabbit. Geez. Real upbeat book huh?

But this section here, it has so much to chew on that I don't even know where to start:

"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 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 suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

New goal: Become Real. It may not look pretty all the time. But it will be me. And it doesn't happen all at once. So hopefully I will be okay with it, eventually.

(BTW: that is not my image. It is from this ETSY store. I hope the artist doesn't mind)