The Wardrobe

Most of you know that I'm not a very good reader--with my eyes. Yet I'm a very good reader--with my ears. And so...I decided that I would read--with my ears--The Chronicles of Narnia. Evidently, my mom is not a reader either (which I had somehow failed to realize until she spoke those words), so we started my earnest journey into Narnia together with "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" as we rode to and from Florida last week.

I had actually listened to the book once before, yet all I remembered was the voice of Aslan and how it made me laugh because it was over the top dramatic. I listened to a different recording this time, though, and opened my ears and mind to a different world--a theological world. Needless to say, this experience with The Wardrobe was much different than my first.

A dear friend and mentor once told me to pay attention to the emotional reactions that I have to the books and movies that I read and watch. She said that the places that hook us are often the places where God is working in our lives. As I drove up I-95, tears streaming down my face, I realized that just how much God had been working in my life since the first time I listened to the book six years ago. I heard:

I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been--if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you--you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.

I thought: I HAVE been that miserable. I HAVE been up all night and cried until I had no more tears left in me. And I DO know the quietness that comes in the end--the quietness of surrender--the exhaustion that wonders if life ever WILL begin again. And it was terrible. And it was awful. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Yet...life DOES begin again. Something miraculous comes in the quietness. Redemption and resurrection DO occur. Christ DID make all things possible. And I am a living testimony of the power of time and Love.

I heard:

Of course you'll get back to Narnia someday. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don't TRY to get there at all. It'll happen when you're not looking for it.

And I thought: Yes, yes it does. Extreme adventure and joy and life's deepest, richest blessings happen when we're not looking for them...especially in the quietness after a long, dark night.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift of life.

Amen. And amen. And amen.