Lions

Among my most vivid childhood memories is the comfort I received from my mother. I can remember coming in from play or school, tearful and distraught. My problem filled my heart and my world. I ran through the door and into my mother’s arms. I do not remember what she said. I only remember the gentle strength of her soft round arms that held me, her tender voice of reassurance and her eyes that looked into my very soul with love. In moments my world was turned upside right again. I was in her circle of loving care.

I am reminded of a favorite character of mine in children’s literature. Shasta in The Horse and His Boy had a lot of troubles. When the great lion Aslan approached him, Shasta said, “I do think that I must be the most unfortunate boy that ever lived in the whole world. Aslan said simply, “Tell me your sorrows.” And he told his story. He told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by a fisherman. He had run away from home but been chased by many wild lions and suffered thirst and hunger.

Aslan then told him an important part of the story that he did not know. There was only one lion. “I was the lion . . . who comforted you . . . I was the lion who drove jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength ... for the last mile …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.” (p. 138)

Sometimes we have to stop in the troubling, puzzling times of life, climb up into Jesus’ arms, childlike and say, “I do think I am most unfortunate.” Jesus will say, “Tell me your sorrows.” Then as we tell him our troubles, he may remind us that like Aslan he has been there all along before us, behind us, beside us, guiding even in difficult places. Often like Shasta, because we cannot see “Aslan,” we think we are forgotten. As we are comforted by the voice of our Savior, our world will be turned upside right again. In truth, we are always in his loving care. -- The Horse and His Boy, C. S. Lewis, Macmillan Co.