Saw this over at Kristina's blog and loved the idea...
Take the nearest book next to you and answer the following questions:
(I'm sitting up in the loft, which has built-in bookcases lining the walls. They're ALL near me. So I picked the one I'm reading.)
Title and author?
The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" by C.S. Lewis
Is the book dedicated to anyone? If so, who?
"To Geoffrey Barfield"
What is the first sentence?
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scubb, and he almost deserved it."
Turn to page 47. Please share the first sentence of the first full paragraph.
"Necessary, unavoidable," said his Sufficiency.
***
I needed a book to read while I ate lunch yesterday and picked this one up. It's one of my favorites in The Chronicles of Narnia. I just love the part where Eustace turns into a dragon and the process of him becoming a boy again. We can peel and peel off layers of our "stuff," but until we let Jesus really deal with it, it just doesn't go away.
"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 and 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. 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 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..."
Oh how I can relate to that...trying to fix my stuff myself and not doing much good and then letting Jesus just peel it off me. It hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt and afterward I feel so bare and tender, but so clean and fresh and new.
Reading this story of Eustace makes me more resolved the next time to let God deal with me first. To just get it over with so I can get to the "perfectly delicious" part without all the itching and scratching and futility of trying to fix myself on my own.
As Beth Moore would say, "Does anybody know what I'm talking about?"!
I totally know what you are talking about and I love how you pulled this together. I had to copy it and print it and I'll talk it over with God during our time together in the morning.
Hugs...Susan
Posted by: Susan | October 23, 2007 at 06:59 PM
Oh yes...'deed I do, Friend! I think of the new rendition of Chris Tomlin's "Amazing Grace," where he sings, "My chains are gone, I've been set free...My God, My Savior has ransomed me..." I could put the word "scales" instead of chains...either way it would be true.
See you manana, mi amiga!
Love you much,
holly
Posted by: Holly Smith | October 23, 2007 at 07:47 PM
And I also have to ask...how many times have you read this book/The Chronicles of Narnia in its entirety???
Posted by: Susan | October 24, 2007 at 05:11 AM
oh, yes-this is being revealed to me everywhere I turn lately. My pride keeps creeping back in if I don't confess it daily and stay aware of it!
Posted by: Beth | October 24, 2007 at 01:41 PM
I LOVE this post. I don't particularly like feeling like an onion...layer after layer of stuff that Jesus keeps tenderly peeling back. But it's worth it. And I LOVE the phrase "perfectly delicious". Beautiful.
Posted by: Meredith | October 24, 2007 at 03:49 PM
That was a beautiful post!!! I knew that meme was going to come in handy :)
Posted by: Kristina | October 26, 2007 at 09:55 AM