Memory Pain and Reminders of Hope

The last day or two have been a little rough.
The return of memory pain -- in spades this morning, led my husband to remind me of this portion from The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" by C.S. Lewis.

The water was a 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 must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud of 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 their skins. 

. . . So I started scratching 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 foot into the water I looked down and saw that it was all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had a 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 under skin peeled off beautifully and 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. . . 

"Then the lion said -- . . . you will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claw, 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 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 that beastly stuff right off . . . and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking that 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 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 the I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."

And so I remember that God is stripping all that old, useless protective skin, so that I can be as He intended all along. And yes it hurts, but this pain is worth it.