We're all familiar with the Narnia movies, (If you haven't watched all of the Narnia movies, stop reading this, and go watch them now)- Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy, a magic wardrobe, the wicked White Witch, and The Great Lion- Aslan. A story of good and evil, love and fear, a traitor, and redemption. A story that somehow tugs on our hearts so strongly, a children's series that addresses the child in all of us. I just recently watched all the movies over again, and found myself weeping by the end. Each movie moved me, but the last one-The Voyage of the Dawn Treader left me in a weepy creepy heap. It could have been each one compiled after another- but what was so highlighted to me, what knocked my knees out...was Lucy's longing. I often identify with Peter, and with Edmund...simply based on my personality and my tendencies. I tend to act out of my own security (or lack there of), tend to act on impulse, or run to lesser lovers than the Only One that should be on the throne of my heart. I tend to seek power, and the next thing that makes me look better. I tend to try to take responsibility on myself, and carry others on my own strength, and the gross thing? It's all for my own pride. The truth is, each of the four characters are representative of different facets of humanity, and any one person may exhibit all or variable combinations of the individual character traits that each of the children exhibit. The Narnia movies do a fantastic job depicting the complexity of human weakness, how hurt people hurt people, and how fear in some form or another affects the way we relate to one another, and how we relate to Papa God. It is clear that Edmund is in a very fragile state in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by the beginning scenes showing him longing for a father who is absent, and struggling for approval from his older brother Peter which he hopes could be a replacement remedy for the aching in his heart. Peter, unaware of his brother's struggle, or more like caught up in his own struggle, doesn't give Edmund the time of day, and instead even harshly expects more of him continually than a young boy could ever give. Why? Peter-out of his own emptiness of heart, feels, or rather takes on the pressure of carrying his family while his father is away, and in his attempt to give what he doesn't have (security, wisdom, guidance, peace), his gaze is so anxiously fixed on what he thinks is 'leading well' that he misses what leading actually looks like and fails. And as a leader- it affects them all. Susan deals differently. She is very logical. She is cautious. She is very safe. She is very intelligent, yet she is not free. She deals with her insecurity, by doing all things proven secure. (But can I get an AMEN this life is not secure!) Seeing is believing for Susan, though try as she might, things shift, and life is defined by change. The bottom line is that she can not secure her own heart by all things proven, for things do not often (if ever) happen the same way twice. Though all of these characters have their redeeming qualities that so Aslan so gently reveals; Peter the Wise and Protecting King, Edmund the Brave and Passionate, Susan the Sensible and Steady, Lucy...Lucy contrasts them all. She does struggle with being youngest, with not being validated, not being heard, and feeling powerless. Yet somehow, her heart is still young enough when she meets Aslan to believe him, to be anchored by him, to be moved by kindness, to let herself be affected. What she brings to the table are innocence and purity. I challenge you, dear readers, as we look deeper into Lucy -to remember that though Lucy is depicted as a little girl, the youngest, and generally the most innocent (simply from lack of years!), what she brings (innocence and purity), are facets of being human, and if you are a human, then you have access to, and possess the same qualities within you. You are not ruined by being too old or having experienced too much. You do not forgo innocence by being male or the oldest. Or the middle. Within you there is purity, innocence and longing, because once you were a child, and still within you there is one. It's who you are. Lets step into freedom together.
In our lives today we don't ever want to be seen as stupid, or out of the loop. To achieve this, we'll sacrifice our innocence, thinking that once we know, we'll be most accepted. Friends. It is possibly the hardest thing to remain innocent in a world that relentlessly demands that we respond to the desires of our flesh. To be a bit more in your face, if in our weakness, we allow him the most room to be our strength, then what is not to desire about that? At what point did you think you were ever even strong enough to breathe on your own?
You and I, we're afraid. We're afraid of weakness, because all we know is that weakness = unworthiness. It means how I feel, and I myself are invalid, and unworthy of love, This is my proposal. Your Father in Heaven loves you. He pulls your lungs open, and collapses them with each breath. He keeps the rhythm of your heart. Beloved, He knew you before you were self sustained, before you were developed...He knows your weakness. He doesn't hate it. At no point is his love under question as to whether or not it'll be there, nothing sways it, especially not you. His love is not dependent on you, what you do, or who you are. His love is like a tidal wave, coming straight for you....always. This is his choice. It is out of this place that we choose innocence, out of this place that we choose to stay a child at the feet of Our Father, staring in wonder, letting who He is fall around us, and accepting the reality of it. We are unafraid to assume the best, to seek beauty, for He loves us. And Love overwhelms fear.
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