waiting...

"I do think," said Shasta, "that i must be the most unfortunate boy that ever lives in the whole world"... And being very tired and having nothing inside him, he felt so sorry for himself that the tears rolled down his cheeks.

What put a stop to all this was a sudden fright. Shasta discovered someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing...At last he could bear it no longer.

"Who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.

"One who has waited long for you to speak'" said the Thing..."that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows."

Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman.  And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert.  And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis.  And also, how very long it was since he had anything to eat.

"I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.

"Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" asked Shasta.

"There was only one lion," said the Voice.

"How do you know?"

"I was the lion." And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And i was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."

"Then it was you who wounded Aravis?"

"It was I."

"But what for?"
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but their own."

"Who are you?" asked Shasta.

"Myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "Myself," so loud and clear and gay; and then the third time "Myself," whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.

 

(The Horse and His Boy, by C. S. Lewis pages 172-176)

********

this section from The Horse and His Boy is what switched it from my least favorite to my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia.  i never knew what it was like to be Shasta until i discovered that i really was.  this is the Narnia retelling of the "Footprints in the Sand" poem that makes no sense and sounds cheesier than possible until you've been there. and it takes absolutely forever to get there.  and in this world, there's no guarantee that Aslan is going to show up and explain with nice, clear bullet pointed-PowerPoint slides how every piece of your story fits together, how every trial was really a blessing in disguise, how every question has a perfectly acceptable answer.  if i were Shasta, i can tell you i would not have stopped arguing my point when he did.

the fact that Aslan even bothered to take the time with Shasta is enough for me, however.  being the incredible One that He is, He even let Shasta go first.  He invited him to, asked him to.

i have spent so much time alone and in the dark over the last several months that i can sympathize more than ever before with that poor dumb boy on the poor dumb horse. if Aslan showed up and asked for a list of grievances from me, it would take me too little time to throw it all down on several Post-its, color-coordinated alphabetically and by order of significance.  why the world is so screwed up, why my life can seem so screwed up, why horrid people do horrid things, why my problems can't be solved in 45 minutes or less like a tv show, why i'm not a princess and why there's no prince handy to fix my every dilemma. why people still have heart attacks and pneumonia over the holidays so neither they nor i get to relax with friends and family. why clothes have to be ironed and rusty pans take so much scrubbing before they shine.

but the greater-than-Aslan still says, "Come. Sit here a while and tell me all about it. Stay longer and hear from me. Let's talk." 

"Myself" is almost as close to "Yahweh" that the English language comes.  Yahweh- the first name God uses to introduce Himself to a mere human.  the name on the covenant. the name that began a relationship between Creator-God and created man. infinitely large and powerful, yet infinitely small and meticulous and detailed. the Yahweh wants to hear from us... from me.  i'm having a very similar conversation with the Large Voice tonight. and as much as i still struggle with the staying-longer and hearing part, i'm taking the first step (again) in trying. i keep getting side-tracked before we ever reach the end of the conversation that began a good many years ago, actually.   

i don't need to have all the answers to all those questions.  He's letting me see my story, not anyone else's, except how they are all really His story.  whatever page you're on, stop every once in a while, listen for the voice; wait for it- it's waiting for you.