My spiritual journey this past week

Lauren and I just got back from an incredible spiritual retreat in Asheville, NC.

Many people have come up and asked us how our retreat was and it has been hard to put into words. The only way I know how to describe it is through the story of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.

In the story, sister and brother, Lucy and Edmund along with a new character, Eustace, embark on a new adventure. During their journey on the ship, the Dawn Treader, their ship becomes damaged and they manage to limp to an unexplored island. Eustace, who has been quite disagreeable through the entire trip, is unhappy to learn that their first day on land is to be spent repairing the ship and other work he would rather not do.

Therefore Eustace sneaks away, climbing a nearby mountain and napping at the summit. Later, when he climbs down, Eustace is lost in a mist and finds himself in a hollow where a dragon lives. The dragon appears to die as Eustace watches it. Eustace goes into the dragon's lair and takes a nap on the dragon's treasure. When he wakes, Eustace discovers he has been turned into a dragon himself.

Eustace goes back to his companions; only he cannot speak and explain to them what has happened. Fortunately, the group figures out he is Eustace and do not harm him. Eustace uses his skills as a dragon to help his fellow travelers, having discovered it is better to have friends and to be friendly, than to be mean and be alone. After Eustace recovers a tree for them to make a new mast and has flown the sailors around the island to find fresh water, Eustace has a dream in which Aslan appears and will help him shed his dragon scales to become a boy again.

Now let's pick up at this part of the story:

"I was just gong to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly though that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched 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 feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another 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 underskin peeled off beautifully and out 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. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the lion said-but I don't know if it spoke- 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to 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 thing 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 the beastly stuff right off-just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than 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 no skin on-and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment....After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me...in new clothes."

That story of Aslan and Eustace was like my experience. Like Eustace, I have been trying to tear "away and at" several major issues in my life, and yet they would still reappear as I would continue to struggle with them. My anger, fear and desperate desire for control have been major issues of struggle for me.

This past week at this Sonship retreat, I let God do what I couldn't - and it was painful. But like Aslan, God waits patiently for me to try and try only to eventually fail and give up trying and then with his loving and yet powerful hand He is willing to strip it all away.

Was this past week painful? Most definitely Yes! Was it good? For certain, Yes! There were no "fixes" this past week(this is a life-long journey) but yet a door opened up. It was a door of new found repentance and grace that by God's grace and help by His Spirit, I was able to walk through.