On becoming "Real"

S

ometimes life's circumstances hurt.

No, nothing terrible is going on here, but I am in the midst of a huge disappointment and, just bein' honest here, it's a bummer.

Remember the triathlons I've been training for? They won't be happening this year. The hip injury that I mentioned wasn't just bursitis, instead I was running and training on a stress fracture. To be technical, a "Femoral Neck Stress Fracture." What that means? I'll find out more details tomorrow from a sports orthopedic doctor that I'll see, but could be as much as 3 months on crutches and at least that long with no running. It seems that there is possibility of a stress fracture in that spot "completing" and fully fracturing the femur. Which, as you could imagine, would not make for a good day. I definitely want to avoid that scenario.

I know that not everyone can identify with this, but not exercising is *very* difficult for me. For many years now I have used some form of daily aerobic exercise as a way to not only stay fit, but also to burn stress. I *miss* my endorphins! (insert 2 year old temper tantrum here....)

I know, in the whole scheme of things this really isn't that huge of a deal... but for me, right now it's big.

For me it's this, but for you it might be something else. Perhaps you've been disappointed in a relationship. Relationships can be so difficult, can't they? My mother and I were talking recently about the pain we experience when those we love make poor decisions and we laughed about the dialogue in "The Velveteen Rabbit" (I know, the title should be underlined, but blogger won't let me!) on becoming "Real."

In that beloved children's classic, a boy is given a velveteen rabbit as a toy. The rabbit realizes that he is not really "real" and has a discussion with another one of the nursery toys, the skin horse, about what it means to be "Real."

"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."

Baby Timmy, playing last year with a teddy bear that was my father's when he was a child.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3

"Consider it joy" and "consider Him." Very, very good advice for me.

Becoming real,