Becoming Real: 40 Days with the Velveteen Rabbit

Day 12 – Tuesday after Second Sunday of Lent – 2nd March2010

To Read: 

That night, and for many nights after, the Velveteen Rabbit slept in the Boy’s bed.  At first he found it uncomfortable, for the Boy hugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, and sometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit could scarcely breathe.  And he missed, too, those long moonlight hours in the nursery, when all the house was silent, and his talks with the Skin Horse.  But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrow the real rabbits lived in. 

from The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams

To Reflect:

When we first throw ourselves (or are dragged by our ear!) into the presence of our loving God – for surely that is who the Boy was to our Rabbit – it will feel uncomfortable.  After all we have been used to other conversations and circumstances.  To be close and intimate with God will mean that, for a season, we may not be as close as we used to be to our other friends. We may, though we are on the journey to the answer of our dreams, regret the change from one place to another.  If we are not careful we may even give up on the journey and, like the Israelites, long once more for the ‘fleshpots of Egypt’.

We may have enjoyed the times in the nursery when we had conversations at our leisure.  Perhaps we have got used to having our own way and doing our own thing?  This may not even have been very enjoyable for us but at least it was familiar.  We did not have to stretch ourselves too far or bend ourselves (or be bent) to the needs of another.

Sometimes I do not always want to be too close to God.  I am frightened that if I give myself completely to God’s purposes there will be no room left over for me!  Then I discover that it is only when I give myself away to God’s loving purposes that I can even begin to become the person I was made to be.

It is never easy to change, even when it comes to getting rid of the things which we do not enjoy, but if we but let go of ourselves God will embrace us and settle us in the compass of the loving arms and we will realize that we are at last on the journey home.

To Pray:

Father of my soul, Mother of my heart,
I know your love for me is limitless beyond imagining.
You care for me as a loving parent.
Through my smallest Lenten sacrifices,
help me to become less selfishand more aware of your ways.
Fan the flame of my desireto draw ever closer to you.
Guide me to seek your love.

© Andrew Dotchin – 2018