Sometimes life is just funny. Things have been an uphill battle lately, especially since we moved back to BC, and though there have been some really great things going on, a lot of it has been really hard. I'm tentative in saying we're nearing the end, though that's how it's been feeling lately.
Things seem to slowly be falling into place, and though these last months have been pretty hard on us, I'm glad to begin seeing the end of the tunnel, and still be walking through it leaning on God and each other more than ever. It's felt to me like something epic is going on in the midst of the mundane disappointment that we've been dealing with lately. I don't know why, but over breakfast with Peter one day I told him that something in how we deal with this time in our lives feels integral to me. Urgent. This isn't just a hard time, it's a turning point, and I've been feeling the gravity of our every response to it. To badly quote John Eldredge, "There's more to this...something bigger is going on here and I'm a part of it even though I don't understand." I actually wrote a journal entry months back where I said that I felt like God was telling us that things were about to get pretty rough, that we'd get to the very edge of what we thought we could take, He'd take it a little further, and then relief. We've been praying for that dependency in our life together, and I'm startled that our asking for it didn't make it easier to take when it came. I know it's not all going to be okay from here on out. I know that my parameters of "okay" are being stretched, and still I feel this weight. This sobering heaviness in knowing that this is so important. That we have to do this right, learn it right. I'm reminded of something Peter and I just read to each other from The Silver Chair. Jill and Eustace have just landed in Narnia, and Eustace has fallen off the cliff and Jill is left alone and meets the Lion for the first time while searching for something to drink:
"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to - do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.
It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion - no one who had seen his stern face could do that - and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn't need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once. Before she tasted it she had been intending to make a dash away from the Lion the moment she had finished. Now, she realized that this would be on the whole the most dangerous thing of all...
I wish I saw myself in Lewis' Lucy, but if I were honest, I don't really. I see myself in Jill most of all. She's exactly like me, and she messes things up so badly and so often that you almost want to scream. The only saving grace to Jill is that she takes correction pretty well. Aslan reminds her of what's important, and she pulls through alright, though at the conclusion of the story, feeling sad, relieved, and sheepish at victory instead of triumphant, knowing herself how close she had come to doing it all wrong, and holding very little stock in herself and much in the Lion. My favorite characters in these stories are the ones that are so terribly flawed. It gives me hope for myself.
"I wish I was at home," said Jill.
Eustace nodded, saying nothing, and bit his lip.
"I have come," said a deep voice behind them. They turned and saw the Lion himself, so bright and real and strong that everything else began at once to look pale and shadowy compared with him. And in less time than it takes to breathe Jill forgot about the dead King of Narnia and remembered only how she had made Eustace fall over the cliff, and how she had helped to muff nearly all the signs, and about all the snappings and quarrelings. And she wanted to say "I'm sorry" but she could not speak. Then the Lion drew them toward him with his eyes, and bent down and touched their pale faces with his tongue, and said:
"Think of that no more. I will not always be scolding. You have done the work for which I sent you into Narnia."
"Please Aslan," said Jill, "may we go home now?"
