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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Peeling Scabs Off Myself

This is a little excerpt from a story that I wanted to share with you. It was such an amazing little excerpt that I felt so inclined to type out the entire thing, so you can rest assured that it's worth your time reading it. It won't take long and I think you should catch on if you just read into the first full paragraph.

"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it--if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it." (This is Eustace speaking.)
"You mean it spoke?" (Edmund)
"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we cane to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on top of the mountain there was a garden--trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.
"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells--like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. 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 had to 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 off 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 alright, 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.
"Then 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 so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling off the skin, it hurt worse that 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 off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away."
"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.
"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off--just as I thought I'd done 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 my simply phony 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--"
"Dressed you? 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."
"No. It wasn't a dream," said Edmund.
"Why not?"
"Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been--well, un-dragoned, for another."
"What do you think it was, then?" asked Eustace.
"I think you've seen Aslan," said Edmund.

I couldn't stop thinking about it after I read it. What an awesome visual C.S. Lewis gave us! (It's from Chapter Seven of The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, which I have been reading over Spring Break.)

By the way, I love peeling scabs. But no matter how many times I try peeling them to make them better, it doesn't make them better, it just leaves a scar. But I do it over and over, thinking that this time, even if it usually doesn't help anything, it might help this time, and plus, I will still have the pleasure of peeling it. Weird? I know. I give myself scars that I don't even have to. But that is for another post.

Anyways, this passage showed me that no matter how much I try, I can't take off all of my nasty, thick, dark, knobbly-looking scabs and skin. But if I only let Christ do it, He will. It will be painful for a little while, but I will be set free with the stripping of my sin by Jesus Christ himself. And this is what I want.

Hope you thought the story was worth reading. :)