Unlocking the Heart

When my last post had words

simmering under the heat 

of ice melt,

I thought my heart was melting

in the stillness also.

But the beginning of the ice melt
is only, well, the beginning.
And the cold has returned to our Wisconsin
Lake town.

But what about my heart? Is this only the beginning
for the ice melt there as well?

Today is Week 8 over at Michele Morin's site Living Our Days,

where we have been studying C.S. Lewis' myth re-told, Till We Have Faces. If you enjoy lively discussion and vivid insights, then hop over to Michele's site for her excellent leading of the study.

And, if you have been following along here, you might remember that Orual had just become Queen in our last study.  After her sister Psyche's banishment to a life of desolation, and Orual's own inner desolation, Orual chose to immerse her days in becoming more and more "Queenly," and took up the title with much virtue. She instituted changes that brought a level of justice and knowledge that her Kingdom of "Glome" had never known before. But those were her days. Her nights were a different matter:

"one little stairway led me from feast or council, all the bustle and skill and glory of queenship, to my own chamber to be alone with myself--that is, with a nothingness."  

As her years wore on, "round and round like a wheel," Orual became weary of the never-ending sameness to her days, and decided to go on a tour of the countries surrounding her own. The lands were finally at peace with each other, and she thought there could come a variety to her days by traveling.

In all of these years, Orual had chosen to wear a veil to cover her own face. Ever since the devastation that happened at the mountain with Psyche, there was a hiding that Orual took up as a cloak. And as the years lengthened, there were fewer and fewer alive who had remembered seeing her face. Always called "ugly" when she was younger, there was now surrounding her an aura of mystery.

Towards the end of the traveling tour, while her companions and servants rested, Orual wandered into a temple where a strange priest recounted to her the tale of the young goddess called Istra, (Psyche's given name,) who had been banished to a life of desolation.  In those moments, Orual's hard heart threatened to break open. She was furious over the way the story of Psyche had been misrepresented through the years.  The true story rushed into her memory, indeed into her very heart, and she remembered the times that she had not admitted to anyone: she had seen the god with whom Psyce dwelt in the palace of supernatural making. In her anger she vowed to tell her own version of the story, and she would unleash her anger at the gods for taking away her own Psyche.

"Often, though I had seen a god myself, I was near to believing that there are no such things. The memory of his voice and  face was kept in one of those rooms of my soul that I didn't lightly unlock. Now, instantly, I knew I was facing them."

As I wait to read the final chapters of the book, I wonder what will become of Orual as she unlocks her heart to face the ice-melt that is happening there. Will she ever remove the veil that she has shrouded herself with for so many years?

More importantly, when the true God who created

all of these dwelling places for us,

our very souls,

calls us to let Him remove the veil

and melt our hearts,

how will we respond?

In my place of pain and weakness,

will I let Him speak words of beauty 

over me?

Or will I choose to hold onto 

the tattered and worn veil,

refusing to let Him cover me

with His words of Love?

As I pray for my own heart

to find the unveiling

so that I can be covered by His Love,

my prayers are also filled

with longing

for you, my friend.

Will you open to Him?

 "The Lord your God in your midst, 

The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17 NKJV 

 

 

If you want to catch up on any of the posts relating to C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, you can find an index by clicking here.


 

I am linking today over at #LiveFreeThursday Suzie Eller

 

Surprised by Love

Have you ever felt your heart

whisked away into a surprising

and mysterious Love?

This is week 7 for the Book Study over at Michele Morin's site: Living Our Days, as she has invited us to join in for the discussion of C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces." I must admit that after last week's (click here for my thoughts on that) intense passages, where Orual chose such a dark path, I had a hard time wanting to read what would happen next. So, when I finally picked up the book to read again, I was expecting to find the wasteland feelings that Orual was set to walk in. However, I was not expecting to find a bright spot in a love that was manifest in an almost hidden event.  

My own heart is finding a surprising Love

from my Dear Lord, as He persists in calling me to a place of Stillness in His Heart.

Orual and her Greek Slave/Tutor, "The Fox," continue to have a deep relationship, even as Orual faces the prospect of the King's imminent death, and her progression into becoming the Queen. As one of her first duties to protect the Kingdom, Orual is thrust into the prospect of a dangerous duel with a neighboring Kingdom's wicked Prince.  Of course, The Fox is against the prospect of Orual taking up the sword-fight herself, even though he finds out that she has been secretly coached by Bardia in the skill.  He argues with her, and pleads for her to give it up. But then the next day he approaches her with this thought, that could almost be brushed over in the quickness of the day's events:

"Daughter, I did badly last night. I think this offer to fight the Prince yourself is foolish, and what's more, unseemly. But I was wrong to weep and beg and try to force you by your Love. Love is not a thing to be so used."

I expected the story to stop, and for all to pay attention right then! Wasn't this the very thing that Oraul needed to hear about true love? Wasn't this the very thing that she had herself tried to force on Psyche in her own selfishness?  But no, the story moved on, and my heart was left to wonder at the brief encounter.  Until pages later, after the King finally succumbed to his illness, and Orual was made Queen, her first official duty was to grant her Dear Fox his freedom.  She realized what that freedom meant for one who had so longed for his own country for a lifetime of years. Oh! In her giving him that right, she faced not just Psyche gone forever, and not just years of wasteland ahead of her as she felt the god's anger with her, now she faced the very real possibility of one who had been more a true Father to her than her own Father had ever been, walking out of her life also. Of course he would choose the freedom of finding his own country again. Who would not?

I have known those longings

They feel as lifetime journeys

Even if time does not agree

The heart knows a different beat

And looks for a country

A Heaven Home

Fairer than any I see before me. 

 

 
But after a long night of inner struggles, The Fox meets Oraul with these words:

"Wish me well, daughter. For I have won a battle. What's best for his fellows must be best for a man. I am but a limb of the Whole and must work in the socket where I'm put. I'll stay."

And once again, C.S. Lewis had me weeping when I least expected to do so. From the heart of a Greek Slave, who held onto Philosophy and Rational Thinking as his sole foundation, he yet understood the depth of what True Love looked like.  He embraced his part in the Story, in Orual's life, as best for himself even if it required his own surrender.

How many times have I heard

my Lord whisper 

deep into my heart

"Choose the better way."

"Choose the way of Love."

 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

John 15:13 NIV 

 

In these days approaching the Season of Lent, 
My heart is drawn to the One who faced the ultimate test of True Love.

His heart won the battle

And gave what I could never give

The Truest Sacrifice 

of Love:
His Life for mine.

How will I respond
to Love that is so pure?

Could I choose 
to surrender my will for His?

Could we see 
What only Love would know,
Our hearts would run
to give Him all.

 If you are looking for a great Devotional
especially for the Lenten Season,
my blogging friend,
Susan Chamberlain Shipe,
has just finished this beautiful book.
Find it Here at Amazon.

If you are interested in reading any of the posts pertaining to the book study of C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, you can find an index to the series by clicking here.

 

I'm linking today over at:
#LiveFreeThursday, Suzie Eller 

Love or Self?

February, the month of LOVE, and I could easily rush through it all. Think that I've been here, done that, the years have proven timeless for me, and Love becomes easy and same, day after day.


But here it is, week 5 in this online book study of C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, and my heart is shattered by the conviction that

the depth of LOVE can never truly be plumbed.

What have I really learned about loving

and giving away my own rights?

Midpoint through this book, and things have come crashing down around Orual and her sister Psyche.  What seemed like love to Orual has shown itself to be something deeper and uglier. When Orual is confronted with Psyche's choice to live out her days in a place that is incomprehensible to Orual, she makes a choice to try to "rescue" Psyche for her own good.  But Psyche wants no rescue, and she cannot convince Orual that her choices are her own to make. Desperate to have Psyche back in her own world, Orual does the unthinkable and threatens Psyche that if she doesn't leave it all to come with her, then Orual would be willing to go to the awful depths of taking Psyche's life and then her own.

My heart was crushed at the awful plans that Orual laid out.

But a deeper conviction pierced through me when I read Psyche's response:

"Oh, Orual--to take my love for you, because you know it goes down to my very roots and cannot be diminished by any other new love, and then to make of it a tool, a weapon, a thing of policy and mastery, an instrument of torture--I begin to think I never knew you."

How could Orual take that love, and use it in such an awful act of manipulation?  I could not comprehend the depth of her will. And yet . . .

Have I not

sullied the Name of Love

when I have asked for it

on my own terms?

Have I not

misused my own desires

to label my Dear One's

needs as theirs

when mine

were the answers

I sought? 

What hope

is there 

for one such as I?

How can Love

ever be

full and free

selfless

and pure?

The Words from my Lord have been spoken so often that they can become one more way to rush through a season that has become artificial and man-made. But God's Words do not become LESS TRUE by our own misuse. No, His Love becomes even more pure  when placed against the starkness of our own selfish desires. 

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:1-7, NIV 


Only Jesus can transform my own loving
to look more like His.
Only Jesus has fully known
true selfless love.

And when my heart is stirred to
taste TRUE LOVE
then His Spirit
is the One who is
doing the stirring
within me. 



Will you join me and ask for
His Love
to inhabit our hearts?

May our Lord Jesus
flood the corners
of selfishness that still lurk
hidden away,
and show us the way
to love our Dear Ones
with His 
Heart of Grace.

Oh Glorious Freedom
The Love that floods
From Jesus
brings with it
His Glimpse into the Beauty
that is His Picture
of our Dear Ones.
  

If you are interested in reading any of the posts pertaining to the book study of C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, you find an index to the series by clicking here.

 

I am linking today with:

Suzie Eller, #LiveFreeThursday 

ETERNITY In Our Hearts and In Our Eyes

I will never forget that day.

My Mother had passed into eternity

just days before.

I was sitting on the deck at my brother's house, her last earthly home,

in the middle of a wind storm.

The trees were swaying so hard

I thought they might come

down to touch me.  

And in the middle of the roaring,

I was suddenly aware that something had shifted 

in my perception.

I felt a veil being lifted

for just a moment.

Heaven was closer than I had ever realized.

Jesus was at home with me here,

just as closely as He was at home

with my Mother there.

So, when the chapters for this week's study of C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces fell open to the picture Lewis paints of the thin veil between this earthly reality and that something more, I knew right where my heart would rest.  

Those memories of brushing eternity never fade.

Because Lewis was so very sure that all true myth is created from a longing put in the human heart to point us to the ONE TRUE STORY that God has created, I have been eager to unpack the myth that he re-tells through this book. I am so thankful for Michele Morin's online study over at her site:

Living Our Days.

Her discussion points bring so much fullness to the story! This week I was faced, square on, with Orual's own progression into a closed and hard heart.

When she crosses into that land of beauty that I mentioned here  last week, she is suddenly overjoyed by the sight of her sister, Psyche, long thought dead, just on the other side of the river. But when Psyche invites Orual to open her eyes and view the wonders of a land beyond this earthly plane, Orual just cannot open her heart. Even when a glimpse is given to her, when she is alone later that night, as she blinks her eyes and finds the image fading, then gone for good, her heart chooses to clamp down ever more tightly on the possibility that something beyond this NOW can exist.

And I wept.

Not just for Orual,

and not just for any I love 

who choose to remain in hardness of heart.

No, my eyes were also weeping

for my own heart.

Having once tasted of that blissfully

thin veil,

And having once rejoiced that

Heaven is HERE

just as much as THERE

although I may not see it,

How could I ever doubt my Sweet Lord's Purposes

in any pain this life might carry?

My mind was taken back, yet again, to an early morning Devotional Time, when my children were homeschooling, and I started my days by listening to Elisabeth Elliot, and her Gateway to Joy radio broadcast. The days were long and hard, with teenagers testing boundaries, unsteady finances, and preparations for traveling with our family's Drama Ministry.  So, when Elisabeth quoted this poem and spoke of God's ETERNAL purpose in pain, I held onto the last line of this verse. Just today, I was able to find a posting of that poem, and her article. You can read the whole article by clicking here if you desire.

The Thorn

I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
And begged Him for one priceless gift that I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
    I cried, ‘But Lord! this is a thorn! and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift which Thou hast given me.’
He said, ‘My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee.’
I took it home, and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
 As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace:

He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil that hides His face.

--Martha Snell Nicholson

He never meant for the struggles and the pain to be the final vision for our days. No, they are meant to pin aside that veil. His Face is the JOY SET BEFORE US! And He is the one standing on the other side of the river, beckoning each one of us to come and see JUST HOW MUCH MORE HE IS WAITING TO GIVE US.

Would you join me in this prayer today?

Here in this place of STILLNESS

The face of Jesus can become

even more precious 

if we would let Him open our hearts 

to find the beauty of eternity,
the beauty of HIS Presence.

"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.  I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,  and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength  he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms"

Ephesians 1:17-20 NIV 

If you are interested in reading any of the posts pertaining to the book study on C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, you can find an index by clicking here.

I am linking today with
Suzie Eller, #LiveFreeThursday