In the past weeks we’ve been thrashing through the thicket of selling our home in Boise (to cover a home equity credit we took out to pay back loans given to purchase “Haus Nazareth”). This means we’ve been packing our household for our major move to Berlin.

In the midst of all of the turmoil, it’s surprising how often a children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, has come to mind.

We used to read this little gem to Seanne and Charissa. The subtitle of the book is “How Toys become Real” and it has been a parable for us of what God actually wants to accomplish through each difficult circumstance and why He sometimes leads His children on rough and painful paths.

The key passage of the story relates how the little Velveteen Rabbit finally gathers enough courage to ask the old Skin Horse something that has been on its mind for quite a while:

“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 often happen 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 when you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’

The Apostle Paul articulated it clearly:

“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” (Romans 8:28-29)

God’s final purpose for us who know Christ is to “conform” (mold/form) us so that we become more like Him. Pain and pressure are not accidents in the life of the believer. God wants to bring us through them and use the pressure to mold and shape our character.