Stripped Bare

I love Chronicles of Narnia.

 Actually I just love C.S. Lewis.
 Period.

 But lately I have been thinking about one particular part of  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

There is a lot to the story and the different characters, but I just want to focus on one tiny bit, so here is a bare-bones summary:

 Eustace, in a mind-set of self-pity and self-righteous justification steals a bracelet from a dragon's lair and puts it on. Turns out, it’s a cursed bracelet and he turns into a dragon. After a period of freaking out, then feeling contrite, then coming unto himself, he is ready to accept the help of the only power that can save him: Aslan. Here is what happens in his words:

"The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain…but the lion told me I must undress first…

 ...So I started scratching myself and 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... 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...

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all...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, however many skins have I got to take off?...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 lion said...'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 so 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...

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 I was 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... And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again...

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..."


 This summer I thought I was doing well. I felt in control, and generally good about myself. But then I had a pretty emotional experience and instead of feeling good and powerful I began to recognize more clearly than I ever how weak I was. I could see that even though I felt like I had been accepting that my worth came from Jesus Christ, unattached to what I said
or did, that even in that thought, I felt like I earned the right to love myself because I was willing to see when others were not.  I became almost afraid to do anything, because I was so intensely aware of the pride that was everywhere. Like a piece of pull-apart Twizzlers, all I could see were the prideful strands of my motivation, and it immobilized me. I didn't think I could see anymore of my weakness, but I was wrong.

 And then everything in my life went on hold. All the options for my future were taken out of my control and I was left chomping at the bit, waiting for answers so I could start living again. I thought it couldn't get any worse, but it did. Everyday I felt like Eustace, the scales of my life being painfully stripped from my skin, leaving me so exposed, so useless, so naked.

Life does that sometimes. It's so easy to look at life and think that no good, no God, no glory could exist in the midst of such treacherous chaos.

But you're wrong. We all are.

Because what you become on the other side is not only a better you, but a more complete you. A truer you. A you without all of the irrelevant unhelpful layers getting in the way.

Like Eustace, we have deeper layers, or "underskins" that keep us from being the real version of ourselves. We clunk around, weighed down by scales and claws, worried about hurting and being hurt, when we don't have to feel that way.

 I spent about 30 seconds on this list, but here are a few layers of scales that come to mind:

          Pain

          Ego

          Fear

         Need to be perfect

         Self-pity/false humility

Comparison--thinking that there is only one way to be successful.

         Expecting negative outcomes--also a form of false humility.

        Thinking that happiness should only look the way we expect it to, based on our limited understanding of the current moment.

It's also so crucial to remember that the Lord does not leave us hanging. His point is to guide us through essential growth, not bury us under a mountain of trouble. I realized while watching a litter of kittens tripping all over themselves on unsteady legs, that the Lord feels the same way about our desperate attempts to be good. I feel for the kittens, I want them to grow up quickly, strong, and healthy, but I am not angry or upset at them when they fall or slip up. God is patient and He understands so much better than we give Him credit for. And when we shed our scales, He clothes us in the comfort of mercy. Isaiah says it best: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness..."

I just want to say that it's worth it.

The pain is worth it.

The fear is worth it.

The hurt is worth it.

The effort required to change is worth it.   The hope is worth it.

In feeling stripped, I also have felt cleansed. I wouldn't trade that feeling for the world. It's a reoccurring cycle, and from the process there comes a return to innocence, a kind of rebirth that fosters hope and light and joy and illuminates the goodness in the world. It says in John that "...this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." In coming to know God, I come to know myself, and more importantly, I gain the ability to love. Love myself, love others, love God.

And that's worth it.