It's later than I'd like it to be. I'm awake. The wind is fiercely howling outside. I can't sleep. There are many lovely and some trivial things on my mind this late blustery evening.
Today I had a 4 hour coffee date with a friend I've known and loved for over 20 years. Katy and I went grew up together from 5th grade on. We played volleyball together, went to Malibu together, we both became teachers. She is one of my dearest and oldest friends. Katy knew me before I knew Christ and has known me and walked with me these last 12 years since I bowed my knee and heart to our Lord.
Katy is lovely and deeply loves Jesus. 9 months ago Katy lost her fiancee 2 months before their wedding. He passed onto glory in his sleep on his 29th birthday. These last 9 months I have wept for and with my dear friend. She is strong, she is real and she is clinging to Christ.
Today we spoke of Malibu and my adventures in life. We recalled being campers together and then being YL leaders together @ WFR one summer (her with urban Seattle kids, me with rural farm kids). We caught up on family and friend updates. We spoke of Aaron and how good he was to her. We cried. We marveled at God's goodness, sovereignty, and care for us. The Lord has been so present and tender with Katy during this time of grief and growth. Life is hard, Jesus is good. Always.
In the pursuit of my master's degree, I am currently taking a counseling class that is reaffirming a lot of things in my mind and heart. For the last 10 years I have been discipled by a woman who in addition to being a loving friend, also happens to be a counselor. Kim asks great questions. Kim challenges me to get to the root of things. Kim has guided me along the path of emotional health and shown me how vital it is to being whole and balanced in Christ. The books I'm reading for class speak to the inseparability of emotional and spiritual growth. Of this, I could write forever (good thing because I have 3 papers to compose on the topic). It reminds me of one of my favorite passages from the Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Katy and I talked about the beauty and pain that Lewis paints in the following passage.
{The impossible Eustace's selfishness has caused him to transform into a dragon. Life becomes quite miserable, lonely and painful as a dragon. What follows is his encounter with Aslan}
"The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.
I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
The the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
The very first tear he made was do deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.
After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me - (with his paws?) - Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. and then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."
What a brilliant depiction of being stripped of the things that hinder us from knowing God and others fully (Hebrew 12:1). The pain of peeling away those hurts and flaws are nothing compared to the freedom in Christ that will follow.
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