Chronicles

New picture of my nephew, Blake.  Honestly . . . would you be able to say "no" this face?  to those eyes?   

I didn’t think so.

I saw Chronicles of Narnia tonight with friends.  I am so moved tonight from that movie experience.  It has been a very long time since I read the very first book in the Narnia series (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe) so I went in with very little reference for what was to happen.  The film is incredibly well-done and it is with great ease that one gets lost in Narnia herself.  But I could not have imagined the worship experience that would occur for me.  Narnia has incredible spiritual richness to it. One would need to see the movie repeatedly to capture most of the nuisances.

[Beware: Spoiler coming below if you haven’t read the book.]

But what impacted me most was the very clear story of the sacrificial love of Aslan for his people as he takes the place of Edmund on the altar. From the moment this scene began to unfold, I began to cry.  It is the halting reminder of how much God loves me.  To see and feel on the screen and in the story two powerful truths:  the first – that I, like Edmund, am a mess up and continually in need of saving from myself. The second truth is that the only way for me to truly live is for Christ to have died for me – to go through horrible pain for me – to willingly lay himself on the altar out of love –  for me.  Me who is guilty of the horrible truth of failing to love God in the smallest fraction of the way God loves me. I wept the entire way home because I was overwhelmed with the knowledge of how much God loves me, what Christ did for me and how pathetic my love is in return. 

We all desperately desire for someone to love us in spite of ourselves.  For someone who will not give up on us when we are our ugliest human self.  For someone that will guard with his or her heart our deepest and most vulnerable hurts, fears, and secrets.  For someone who believes us to be the most treasured person in the world and worthy of any sacrifice.  For someone to love us . . . unconditionally and forever.  There is only One who can meet this deep desire.  There is only One that will complete that part of our soul and nothing we can ever do will make Him love us less … nothing.

Nothing you can ever do will make Him love you less.
Nothing I can ever do will make Him love me less.

May we each remember with fresh and broken hearts this truth at every turn this Christmas season.  May every carol sung, every present given, every meal shared, and every card received flood our souls with the knowledge that all of this is about the greatest love story ever told.

Peace – Melissa