Mere Lewis

Welcome back to the series in which Grace rambles about whatever is on her mind. In this edition, she talks about how God piqued her interest for the Gospel through children’s literature and how He can continue to use such works (including the beloved Narnia) to further His Kingdom.

Warning: Spoilers for The Chronicles of Narnia below.

My family is very athletic.  

I am not.

Painfully so.  

When I was in fifth grade and up through my middle school years, my younger sister, Abby, played basketball for our local Upward team.  Upward is a Christian organization that helps kids find Jesus through sports.  Abby’s team met at First Baptist Cookeville every Tuesday night for practice and had games every Saturday morning.  My parents thought I was too young to stay home alone.  So every Tuesday, my dad would get off of work early, and we’d go out to dinner in Cookeville, a 20-minute drive from my hometown, then watch Abby run drills.  

I was bored out of my mind.  

Consequently, at the first practice, I had forgotten to bring a book to read.  This meant an hour and a half of sitting on the cold metal benches under the church gym’s flickering fluorescents, staring at the ground.  I lived by the words of Lemony Snicket: “Never trust someone who hasn’t brought a book with them.” Which meant I had become untrustworthy.  How I hated it.  When I walked in the church door, the blast of heat hit me in the face.  Outside, the sky threatened snow that would never come.  I was already dreading the smelly gym and mindless small talk of adults.  

That’s when God sent me a miracle.  

In the corner of the church gym’s welcome center, there was a tall wooden bookshelf.  It drew my eye as I trudged behind my parents to the gym doors.  My heart lept into my throat at the sight: books.  I ran over, only to find it was all boring Jesus books.  Men’s Bible studies, women’s devotionals, copies of the Bible in every version.  Just when I was about to turn away, I noticed the top shelf.  Sitting there like they were meant just for me, where all seven of the Narnia books in tattered paperbacks.  Grinning like it was Christmas, I grabbed The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and ran to find my parents.  

I didn’t know it then, but that moment started a tradition I would cherish until adulthood.  Because the practice was longer than an hour and I was a fast reader, I managed about one book per practice.  That night, I dove into the world of Narnia anew.  I sat with Lucy at the stone table, and fought the Witch with Edmund, all the way until they came tumbling out of the wardrobe again.  One book a night, for two months.  Every year since, I have read the entire Narnia series, from Magician’s Nephew to Last Battle, starting in January and finishing mid-March.  

As I sat there, the sounds of dribbling basketballs and squeaking shoes were lost in my deaf ears. I enjoyed reading Lewis’s works as fiction and nothing more.  I knew Aslan was meant to symbolize Jesus, and his death made me sad, but after you read the series twice a year for half a decade, you stop reading for symbolism and start just seeing the words on the page.  The magic is somewhat lost.  

All I knew was that my heart longed for Narnia like it never had for something else.  When I closed my eyes, I could see the towering mountains on each side of the White Witch’s house and smell smoke rolling gently out of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver’s chimney.  In each clap of thunder, I heard Aslan’s roar.  When I read the dialogue, I pictured myself just off the page, listening to the beautiful monologues and hearing the laughter float on the breeze.  

Eventually, Abby aged out of that program, and I had to leave those worn paperbacks behind.  But I never forgot the memory of the scent of sweat and old paper.  The sound of those pages turning as balls were driibled and buzzers blared.  The vibrancy of Lewis’s worlds still burned in my imagination.  

As the years passed, I learned to widen my bookshelf to accommodate other titles.  Titles I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have in my backpack as a high school student.  Then, in my sophomore year, I found myself with quite a bit of time yawning in front of me.  COVID knocked my spring term into online only, which slowly petered into nothing at all.  My summer that year started in March.  Hours to fill and nothing to fill it with.  The world was in shambles, I just didn’t know it yet.  So what did I do?  I wrote mostly.  That period of time is filled with memories of writing my first published book series, broken up by the occasional food break and a Hamilton jam session with my sister.  But when the house was quiet, my laptop was long dead, and the streets outside were more empty than I’d ever seen them, I found myself crying out alone in my darkened room.  My heart yearned for something, and I had no idea where to find it or even what it was.  

A year previously, my favorite artist had put out a new book.  It was nonfiction, of all things, but I still read it.  In Adorning the Dark, Andrew Peterson says this beautiful quote that I didn’t quite understand at the time, but have since found myself returning to again and again.  He said, “Pay attention to the times when you are crying without knowing why.  God might just be teaching you something.”  

So what did I do?  I picked up Narnia.  

Once again, Aslan, Lucy, and Reepicheep were ablaze in my mind.  But this time was different.  As I read, it was as if God lifted a veil from my eyes.  As if for the first time, I read the story, not how it was written, but how it was meant to be read: through the eyes of a sinner seeking a Savior.  I saw how Edmund and I were truly the same.  I wasn’t Lucy or even Caspian in this story; I was the traitor.  I was the evil wretch who seemed unable to change her stripes or listen to reason.  

I was Edmund.  

Oh, how I wept.  From the moment Edmund stepped foot in the wardrobe, I was teary-eyed.  He and I were the same lost kid, and Aslan was on the move.  Those words sent shivers down my spine.  Aslan was on the move.  CS Lewis wrote that when the children first heard Mr. Beaver say the name, they each felt a little different.  Lucy felt a shiver of excitement.  Peter felt suddenly brave.  But Edmund felt a cold shot of fear run down his spine.  I understand that now.  The Great Lion, who knew exactly what he was about to do, was waiting for him.  He knew his name.  

Edmund betrayed his siblings and Narnia to the witch.  Not for the sweets but for the chance to feel like he was in control of his life for even a moment.  The Witch promised he would be king, not Peter, and he was ready to make the rules rather than live under them.

Only the Witch wasn’t forthcoming with kindness or her throne.  Edmund wasn’t King of all Narnia.  He didn’t have absolute control.  He was a prisoner and a slave and trapped by the very act he thought would free him.  

Just when all seemed lost for Edmund, he was rescued.   

All seemed well.  But the Witch demanded blood.  Someone would have to die in Edmund’s place.  But who could surely fill such a role?  Who would be willing to lay down their own life for a traitor?  Aslan himself fills the role on the stone table that very night.  He, the Prince of the Land Across the Water, The Great Lion, the Almighty, died for a grubby boy who’d given them all away without looking back.  

As I read the horrific death of Aslan, my heart seemed to beat out of my chest.  It wasn’t a stranger on that Table, but a dear friend.  I knew that Lion, and He knew me.

I’d grown up in church.  I knew the story of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection.  I was saved at eight years old.  The concept of sacrifice was not a foreign one because I’d read about the Passover, the Crucifixion, and a dozen stories in the Bible that dealt with the concept.  But somehow, the story I’d become calloused to was finally piercing my heart.  

All because of a children’s story.  

Since then, I’ve made a habit of reading all of the Narnia books each year.  And every time I read them, I am reminded anew of that night and how God had used children’s stories to plant seeds for the gospel to grow.  

Although I couldn't see it then, those paperbacks helped shape me into the writer and the Christian I am today.  Looking back, I can see how God used those books to turn me back to him.  What I thought was a thirst for salty adventure on the Dawn Treader was really my heart looking for understanding.  My deep desire to walk with Lucy alongside Aslan was God's calling for me to walk with Him.  As I wept at the final words in Last Battle, God was calling my heart home. 

Perhaps I love children’s stories because they present the world to me like no other literature does.  The world painted by children’s books is simple and comprehensible to the smallest child.  That is why I cling to them.  I need something to make sense in this broken, upside-down world.  It is far easier to understand the struggle between the well-defined line of black and white in, say, Harry Potter than in reality, where everything is painted in shades of gray.  I devour those stories, only to return to my world gasping for breath.  Because, at the end of the day, those stories cannot become my reality.  There is an undiscovered world hidden behind that wall of security I have learned to call fiction.  I long for that security, but I also need truth.  

As much as I love Aslan, there will always come a point to when he is just a lion, mirroring the real thing.  All those nights I lay awake, gripping those paperbacks, tears streaming down my face, I thought what I needed was a wardrobe.  But that wasn’t true.  Now, when I feel that longing, I can finally name it.  

It is a spiritual homesickness.  

It is God calling me back home.  As much as Narnia, or anything else, can try to fit that hole, only God can truly fill it.  That is why, at the end of the day, I open my bible rather than Prince Caspian.