“Does [becoming real] 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 your 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.

There are some children’s stories I don't like-­Pinnochio for example. As a child, I could pretend that a wooden marionette could come to life-no strings attached. But to believe that the “live” puppet could become a real boy was too much for me. So, as an aspiring author in second-grade, I rewrote the ending having the wooden Pinocchio die a painful, prolonged death of Dutch elm disease.

Maybe that’s why I enjoy Bible stories-no Fairy Godmothers, no knights in shining armor, and best of all, not every story ends with “they lived happily every after.”

Even though Job is described as a “blameless and upright” man who “feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1), he lost his health, wealth, and family.

Paul, the very first missionary and namesake of thousands of churches, basilicas, and my own son, described himself as “a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” The Lord even gave him the power to heal the sick and raise the dead. Pretty impressive resume. But Saint Paul didn’t live a charmed life:

Five different times the Jews gave me thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. I have traveled many weary miles. I have faced danger from flooded rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the stormy seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be Christians but are not. I have lived with weariness and pain and sleepless nights. Often I have been hungry and thirsty and have gone without food. Often I have shivered with cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of how the churches are getting along (2 Corinthians 11:24-28).

God didn’t even honor Paul’s request to heal his “thorn in the flesh” who some commentators and speculators believe was suffering from either malaria, poor vision, an especially powerful libido, or all three.

When it comes to pain, I’m more of a Jabez kind of guy. This Old Testament character prays, “Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain" (1 Chronicles 4:10, NIV) or “. . . that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me (KJV.) That’s why I don’t buy into all this “no pain, no gain” stuff. “No pain, no owies,” that’s my philosophy. But becoming real is a painful, life-long process.

The Bible is painfully honest, despite what we’ve been taught in children’s Bible story books and videos. We see images of Peter being miraculously rescued from prison, but nothing about James being beheaded just a few verses earlier! (Okay, okay, James’s severed head may be too intense for the flannel graph.) But stories in the Bible, as opposed to “Bible stories” do paint a much more realistic view of life.

For instance “The Faith Chapter” is filled with amazing miracles and sensational answers to prayer:

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again (Hebrews 11:32-35a).

Wow, this is great preaching and teaching material! But, wait there’s more. The end of the chapter provides “the rest of the story.”

Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised (Hebrews 11:35b, italics mine).

Where are the sermons, books, and videos based on these stories? And how about all those verses that talk about how good for us are painful experiences?

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it (Mark 8:34-35).

(Keep in mind that Jesus isn’t talking about 24k jewelry or those glow-in-the-dark prizes from Vacation Bible School. He’s talking about the most painful method of death devised at that time.)

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:3-4).

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:7-9).

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2-4).

Perhaps M. Scott Peck sums it up well with the opening paragraph of his best-selling book, The Road Less Traveled:

Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Henri Nouwen chimes in with, “life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you'd rather not go.”

Pain-free preaching with all gain (“Jeeeee-sus wants you healthy and wealthy”) teaches an unrealistic view of life and of God. Sorry, but the concept of “no pain, no gain” is not only true in sports but in spirituality.

Philip Yancey, in his wonderful book In His Image, documents the work of leprosy doctor Paul Brandt. The cause-and the curse-of this flesh-destroying illness is that the victims feel no pain. So, if a leprosy patient gashes the bottom of his foot while walking barefoot, he won’t notice a problem until it is infected to the point of losing his foot.

Pain then, Yancey argues, is a gift from God. Without it, we wouldn’t have clue we were sitting on a hot stove or a rat was gnawing on our leg until severe damage had been inflicted. I received such a “gift” several years ago. I had just settled into my warm waterbed after a long day, when suddenly it felt as if the middle of my back was being run over by a tour bus-with snow chains-loaded with passengers-on their way to a Weight Watchers meeting. As my wife drove me to the hospital, I tried Lamaze breathing as I dug my fingernails into the van’s armrests. All the focusing on the hood ornament and the pattern-pant breathing of “Hee, hee, hee ho­” we had learned in childbirth classes were summed up in a limerick I had written after the birth of our first child.

A woman called Lois Elaine, in Lamaze did faithfully train, Despite patterned breathing with huffing and heaving, screamed, “This isn’t ‘pressure,’ it’s PAIN!

During the twenty-minute drive, I probably called out the name of “Jeeeee-sus” more times than that televangelist with the big hair.

I prayed that Jesus would return-right then and there-as I writhed on the cold x-ray table wearing nothing but a sheet and what remained of my dignity after losing my dinner all over the examining room. Finally, the ER staff, who must been on a union-guaranteed break finally returned and announced that I had a kidney stone. And every woman I’ve talked to who has had a baby and a kidney stone, would choose forty-eight hours of back labor over a kidney stone.

While tapping away at my IV pump’s game-show-type clicker (“I’ll take PAIN KILLERS for 1,000 cc, Alex”), I began to appreciate morphine-and pain. My kidney would have failed within a few days if God hadn’t put half of our pain and pleasure receptors in our plumbing. Normally, it takes arterial bleeding or a compound fracture to send me to the doctor, but within half an hour, I was out of our warm bed, out into the November cold night, dashing through the snow, and peeing in a paper cup at the ER.

To be honest-and real-I have to admit I’ll take pleasure over pain any day of the week. (Anyone who enjoys pain needs a month of in-patient treatment at the Menniger Clinic!) But pain is a, well, painful part of the process of becoming real.

Pain produces perspective

Although I had a deadline for my weekly newspaper column that next day and was finishing up a book (I had nearly all the pages colored), those things were suddenly at the bottom of my “To Do” list. It wasn’t important that I was unshaved, un-showered, and wearing my grubbiest sweats when I stumbled into the ER. And even though, I’m the type who always locks the bathroom door-even when no one is home-I checked my modesty at the front desk.

After three surgeries in three hospitals in two months, doctors were finally able to pry the stubborn stone loose. Which provided this perspective that I shared in my column:

Everyone needs to have a kidney stone once in his or her lifetime. Preferably, the sooner the better.

You see, experiencing the sensation of having the middle of your back run over by a tour bus-with snow chains-loaded with passengers-on their way to a Weight Watchers meeting tends to put life into perspective.

For instance, if you're riding in a tour bus and the rest room door suddenly swings open and you can't reach the handle without creating an additional sight on the tour, you can say, "Hey, sure beats a kidney stone." (All of these examples are, of course, hypothetical and have never happened to me personally.) Or your daughter calls you at 1 a.m. in the middle of winter and says, "Gee, Dad, did you know that a '95 Neon can straddle a traffic island?" you can say, "Hey, sure beats a kidney stone."

This perspective also works for times you attempt to repair the toilet yourself and manage to not only cripple the commode, but also break off the main water shut-off valve. (I did mention that these are strictly hypothetical examples, didn't I?) It helps when your mother-in-law backs into your brand-new car. The time your five-year-old son drives spikes into your coffee table. When you lose a great job as an editor at a publishing house due to corporate downsizing. While you're recovering from double-hernia surgery and something on TV prompts a belly laugh. When you're spending half your vacation time sitting in a traffic jam in downtown Chicago with a stick shift, no air-conditioning, and two kids in the back seat waging a fight to the death. You can always say, "Hey, sure beats a kidney stone."

It also works for intestinal flu, crashed computers, lactose intolerance, sadistic dental hygienists, arthritis, overdrawn checking accounts, terminal toasters and transmissions, impacted wisdom teeth extractions, flexible sigmoid exams, IRS audits, and flat tires in the rain fifty miles from any form of civilization.

Now there are some things that are worse than a kidney stone such as death, divorce, and "Saved By the Bell" reruns, but most domestic disasters and occupational pratfalls pale in comparison to a kidney stone. And that puts everything in perfect perspective.

It's been six years since my painful epiphany, which brings me to another kidney stone insight: "All things must pass."

Pain produces perseverance

St. Paul, who had his share of pain, wrote: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4).

Randy, a seventeen year old, wanted the weekend off at his part-time job to attend a retreat but his boss at the factory told him, “You either be here Saturday or you’re fired.” The new Christian was totally discouraged because his family desperately needed the money. I promised to pray for a solution, but Friday night Randy called to say he couldn't go. He had to work.

As we were loading the vans Saturday morning, Randy and his Camero came squealing into the church parking lot.

“You're never gonna believe it, Pastor Jim. I went into work this morning and the union guys walked out on strike! The plant's closed. Man, I'll never doubt God again!” Shortly afterward, Randy found out his mom was dying of cancer. For the next six months, I watched and prayed as he struggled with unanswered prayer. “If God can cause a walkout at a factory, why can't He heal my Mom?!” But through the struggle, Randy's faith grew. His mom accepted Christ as her Savior. It looked like a treatment might save her life. And then she died.

It would have been a much better story if Randy's mom had been miraculously healed. It would even be a good story if Randy had continued in his growth as a Christian, even after his mother's death. But he didn't. Randy has lived an inconsistent life ever since then. I wish the Christian life always ended with “they lived happily ever after.”

As Randy’s youth pastor, had I dwelled on the miracles of the Hebrews’ escape from Egypt without mentioning that Moses never made it to the Promised Land? Did I stress “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” without balancing that story with Christians in the coliseum? Maybe he watched too many “name it and claim it” TV preachers. Or maybe, like me, Randy wanted his faith journey to be one long day at Cedar Point.

People who are real are those who have persevered despite great pain. Helen Keller, blind and deaf, became an inspiration to millions of disabled people. Corrie TenBoom sat by her sister’s side as she died in a Nazi concentration camp, yet went on to write and speak internationally about forgiveness. Joni Erickson Tada, paralyzed from the neck down, paints watercolors, hosts a nationwide radio show, and speaks at conferences throughout the world-all from the confines of her motorized wheel chair.

The most real people I know have histories of great emotional or physical pain and yet they have persevered. As my Dad used to remind me, “What doesn’t kill you, just makes you stronger.”

One of the things that keeps me going besides Ibuprophen (for a pain in the neck), Lipitor (for the cholesterol level of Jack Sprat’s wife), Claritin (for living in the pollen capital of North America), and Prozac (for being a freelance writer), is Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

It’s the ultimate “good news/bad news” joke of life.

For instance, the bad news: my wife nearly died giving birth to our first born and we had few maternity benefits with our insurance; the good news, all the hospital bills were paid since it became a “major medical” event. The bad news, the post office lost my airline tickets recently, the good news: due to a price war, the replacement tickets were $150 cheaper. The bad news, I’ve had some extremely lean years in my so-called career in writing; the good news is that through those times, I have drawn much closer to God-and that is the real “punch line” in this comedy of errors.

Unfortunately most speakers and authors stop at Romans 8:28. But St. Paul reveals our “purpose” in the rest of the paragraph:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Romans 8:29).

Pain produces purpose

Our purpose, as those “who love God,” is to take up a painful cross, be hard-pressed, perplexed, abandoned, struck down, and suffer tribulations that we may conform to the very image of reality, Jesus Christ himself.

If we lived in some kind of pain-free Disney World existence, we would never become conformed to Christ-conformed to Goofy, perhaps, but not Christ.

Okay, mister smarty pants author, you may be thinking. So what is God’s role in pain? Does He cause our pain much like a dentist or personal trainer does to bring a greater good? Or does He allow tragedies so He can come and pick up the bloodied pieces and conform them to the likeness of His Son?

I can say with the utmost confidence, I have no clue -- and I have a degree in theology. I do know, however, that whether God causes, allows, or simply takes a “hands off” approach to pain, He does work it for our good.

I’ve spent a lot of spiritual perspiration trying to answer the questions of “why” in my life, but I’ve come to the conclusion that’s a fruitless effort. I probably will never understand the reason why my second-grade Sunday school teacher committed suicide, why I was laid off from the perfect job in publishing, or why bad things happen to such nice people as you and me. But I think God is more than willing to answer “how” we can use these tragedies to conform us into the image of his Son.

And so God has used allowed broken book contracts, layoffs, and books that actually sold negative numbers (yep, more book stores sent back copies of Sex Is Not a Four-letter Word than they sold) to humble an arrogant, egocentric, wannabe author.

He has used physical pain to move me past annoyance with old people’s complaints (“Come on, Gramps, stop obsessing about your colon!), to a real empathy for anyone in pain. Yep, God even works together for good stubborn kidney stones, double-hernia surgery, flexible sigmoid exams, and central serous chorioretinopathy (which simply is a $200 an hour ophthalmologist’s term for looking at life just a bit differently than normal people). Now, I even get false labor pains whenever I visit the Maternity Ward.

But more than physical pain, God has used emotional pain to make me a more understanding person. When I started out in youth ministry during the Polyester Age, my counseling philosophy was simply, “Get over it!” Now that I’m diagnosed with clinical depression, I have much more empathy for people who I used to think didn’t have any willpower or control over their thinking processes. I might as well tell a diabetic, “You don’t need insulin, just a better attitude toward life!”

I don’t credit (or blame) God for any of this pain or planned obsolescence. (I’ve noticed my face is sliding off my head and collecting under my chin. If it weren’t for my belt, my chest would be around my ankles.)

But I do praise Him that He has used times of physical, mental, and emotional pain to chip away at my sharp edges. And it has allowed me to provide real comfort for others losing their looks, their jobs, or their health. Paul writes,

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

One Sunday morning I spoke to our small congregation with these three points: 1) I’m a mess, 2) You’re a mess, 3) We all need a Mess-iah. I put away my notes away and gave an impromptu confession of Lois and my marriage problems. For several years, my wife and I were co-pastors at a small country church. We co-preached, co-counseled, co-married and buried, and drove each other co-razy. It’s taken lots of long discussions and professional counseling to work through a lot of baggage we’ve dragged along from our pasts. And I resigned from the co-pastor designation to pursue writing and speaking, which I seem to be more gifted in ministry.

After I shared about how God had helped us keep our commitment “till death do us part”-without killing each other-and began to renew our love for each other, I was shocked at the number of parishioners who thanked me for being “real” and putting words to what they had felt in their own marriages. (Actually, I was afraid Lois and I would be calling the moving company right after that message!)

I have begun to understand what Skin Horse meant about becoming real being painful.

Thomas a’ Kempis writes in his classic devotional The Imitation of Christ:

It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men.

When a man of good will is afflicted, tempted, and tormented by evil thoughts, he realizes clearly that his greatest need is God, without Whom he can do no good (Chapter 12).

And so . . .

. . . by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your 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.”

Discussion Questions:

Who do you believe is the most “real” person you know? Has pain contributed to that reality?

What do you think the Skin Horse meant by, “When you are Real you don't mind being hurt”?

Why do you think becoming real “doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept”?

Do you agree with St. Paul that, “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope”?

How has pain contributed to your becoming real?

Copyright © James N. Watkins. All rights reserved. For information on reprinting this article, click here.