Becoming Real: 40 Days with the Velveteen Rabbit

Day 27 – Friday after Mothering Sunday – 19th March2010

 

To Read:

And then, one day, the Boy was ill.

His face grew very flushed, and he talked in his sleep, and his little body was so hot that it burned the Rabbit when he held him lose.

Strange people came and went in the nursery, and a light burned all night and through it all the little Velveteen Rabbit lay there, hidden from sight under the bedclothes, and he never stirred, for he was afraid that if they found him some one might take him away, and he knew that the Boy needed him.

from The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams

 

To Reflect:

Can it be possible that God needs us?  Could it be that somehow God is diminished if we are not present and tucked up in the blankets next to God?  These are big questions which have exercised minds much greater than mine but they do deserve some attention.

I am absolutely convinced that God can manage the world without me – in fact it is when I think that God can’t manage without me, when I proclaim myself to be ‘God’s gift to the Church’ that I tend to fall headlong quickest!  However I do somehow sense that God is saddened by my absence from the loving presence.  If I snuggle up close to God then I somehow make it easier for God to establish a reign of peace and justice.  After all if I am nearby there is one less rabbit running around the Downs for God to chase after…..

God does not need us to remain God, but I am certain that God appreciates our presence.  After all in a few days will we nothear in our churches the words of Jesus, ‘Could you not stay awake with me one hour?’  In the middle of redeeming the world the Creator draws some kind of strength from the presence of the creation.

So as we enter the season of Passiontide this may be an appropriate time to be even closer to God.  Stand very close to Jesus as he goes forward to Calvary.  Refuse to allow anyone to distract us and remove us from his side.  Perhaps be ‘hidden from sight under the bedclothes’ so that we cannot be taken away because ‘The Boy’ needs us.

Make plans now for this time of intimacy with our Saviour.

 

To Pray:

My loving Lord,it’s so hard to love the world sometimes
and to love it the way Jesus did seems impossible.
Help me to be inspired by his love and guided by his example.
Most of all, I want to accept that I can’t do it alone,
and that trying is an arrogance of self-centeredness.
I need you, dear God, to give me support in this journey.
Show me how to unlock my heart so that I am less selfish.
Let me be less fearful of the pain and darkness
that will be transformed by you into Easter joy.

  

Ponder these words from Philippians which may be read in church this Passion Sunday

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if  somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 

(Philippians 3.10-11)

 

 

© Andrew Dotchin – 2018