A Lesson From Narnia

I've had a little over a week since taking the California bar, which leaves me with about three weeks before I start working. This is, I suppose, my last real chance for a summer vacation.

I've tried to take care this week to do something worthwhile every now and again. I'm careful not to play too many video games, which also keeps me in Michelle's good graces. I've also been quick to suggest family trips to the zoo, the beach, or elsewhere. And I've been crafty enough to play golf in the very early hours of the day, so that my absence for such outings is minimally noticed.

Lately, too, I've reacquainted myself with reading for pleasure--which has made it a good deal easier to turn off the TV in the evenings (though now having a DVR and having the Cubs blow yet another baseball season helps with that immensely too--but I'll leave that for another post). It started when I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a few days before the bar exam.

After the exam, I decided to pick up the Chronicles of Narnia again. I read them quickly after my mission, and have meant to read them again but never made the time. C.S. Lewis called them childrens stories, and they can be enjoyed on that level. His allusions to God and Christianity, though, are what have me coming back to the books even at 27. I think Lewis intended that. In some of these books he's able to make points about Gospel Principles and about the nature of God that perhaps he'd not adequately be able to do outside the context of the story.

Anyway, yesterday I read The Horse and His Boy and my mind has been lingering ever since on that portion of the story where Aslan walks with Shasta up the mountain in the darkness. It's a touching moment where Shasta and the reader learn of Aslan's mindfulness of Shasta, even though Shasta had no notion of it until then.

I caught myself thinking about that very same moment again today as I watched Jared while he was in nursery and I was between the 2nd and 3rd hours of church. Jared, you see, has had great difficulty adjusting to the nursery. Up until today he has either cried himself out of the room or required Mom or Dad to be there with him.

Today, though, he was trying to manage it without us, though not willingly. Michelle asked me to stay back in the hall and watch him for a bit from the window to make sure he'd be all right. I watched him for some time as a nursery worker read him a story, as he tried to play by himself, and as he coped with another child screaming. I watched him anxiously for signs that he'd be ok, and felt ready to rush in to comfort him if the need arose. All throughout, he never knew I was there watching.

As I thought on that, my heart nearly burst to realize that God had been doing the same for me, only He had waited with me longer, with perfect patience, perfect care and concern, and a perfect ability to comfort. He has been just out of my view in my worst and best moments, but He has been there. And He will be waiting there for me still for years to come, though I'll sadly probably never quite adequately acknowledge His hand, either in what has been or in what remains.

At that moment, though, it was enough to be reminded that He is there. I felt glad to be a parent, if only because the responsibilities of parenthood lend insights into mind and character of God toward His children. I felt glad, too, that that brief moment earlier today helped me more willingly turn to Him, and feel more confident that my earnest petitions for aid would be readily answered--regardless of whether I'm cognizant of such answers.