Sometimes We All Need Reminders

Woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I'd somehow flunked a quiz.  Writing/publishing's been slow. Weight's remained steady despite exercise (Consistently) since July 4th.  In short, life felt rather like a dog day of summer.  I'd fallen asleep after rereading "A Horse and His Boy," by C.S. Lewis, and in that early hour of the morning, the chastening of Bree, the War Horse struck home.

Aslan appears.  "Now, Bree," he said, "you poor, proud, frightened Horse, draw near. Nearer still, my son.  Do not dare not to dare.  Touch me. Smell me. Here are my paws. Here is my tail. These are my whiskers.  I am a true Beast."

"Aslan," said Bree in a shaken voice, "I'm afraid I must be rather a fool."
"Happy the Horse who knows that while he is still young. Or the Human either."

Bree needed to learn what the hermit told him, but resisted until Aslan appeared.  "My good horse," said the Hermit, who approached them unnoticed because his bare feet made so little noise on that sweet, dewy grass. "My good Horse, you've lost nothing but your self-conceit. No, no, cousin. Don't put back your ears and shake your mane at me. If you are really humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must listen to sense. You're not quite the great horse you'd come to think."  I thought about my frustration with not getting published or the job I wanted, and the wise words of a friend, about being willing to trust the right position would be there, and not wanting to surrender that bit of the ego.  To which God simply asks, "Why not?"

Sometimes, my self worth gets tied up in my weight, my accomplishments, or even asserting having ten children.  None of these are in any way related to anything other than what I've done or not done.  They have only so much merit as facts about me, for the having and the doing and the weighing are not where the worth lies, however often I misjudge myself.

I thought of our kids.  I love our children not for their ability to run a 5K or grades or even their obedience (when it happens).  I love them because they are.  Just so, my husband loved me long before any of this part of our lives happened and I him, and my parents, before I could do squat.  Love doesn't require us to do, but to be.  God loves us and we can do quite literally nothing without Him, and nothing "for" Him, but to love Him back.  We can only respond to God's love with our own imitation of His generosity and selflessness, with all that we allow ourselves to surrender. 

This morning, in my Facebook feed, a friend posted a quote, "Be so good, they can't ignore you." by Steve Martin.  I thought about that quote and while it's true that one must persist and keep honing one's craft no matter what, it is a calling to be good so as to be noticed and I believed in that moment, that's exactly what in some cases (not always and not all), I'd done.   At which point, the words of the Hermit to Bree hit home once more, after acknowledging he's braver and cleverer than the non-talking horses he's lived with; "It doesn't follow that you'll be anyone very special in Narnia. But, as long as you know you're nobody very special, you'll be a very decent sort of Horse."  and Bree still struggles before making it to Narnia with whether horses who talk, do horsey things like roll in the grass.  For him, pride is a constant thorn, because he wants to be special and he's used to thinking of himself that way.   He's used to valuing himself for how he is viewed, and for what he's done.

He rolls in the grass before he gets there, just to make sure he gets one last chance to enjoy himself before getting to Narnia.  While C.S. Lewis doesn't mention it, as he's wrapping up the story, we can know, in Narnia, Bree probably rolled with abandon, because he's finally surrendered that self-conceit. 

I'd made my list of things to do for the day.  I added confession.  Why?  Because that's how I roll.