Oh, happy day!

It's probably easy to guess that I've always loved the Narnia series. But how many of you know that

 The Silver Chair is officially on IMDB.com!!

Yeah. It's pretty great news. 

While cleaning out old picture files, I found this 5 or 6 year old picture of me with my very own Shasta soda. It was VBS. We were outdoors in August, so it was very hot. Which is why my face is melting...

Hot summer day + chasing kindergartners for 2 hours= truly awful pictures

And so, sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, get ready for some theatrical greatness!

The Princess "Caspian"?

Anyone who's seen The Princess Bride, which is probably nearly everyone here, will get this comic:

Caspian X & Joshua

What do you think this guy:

have to do with this guy:

courtesy of google images

Well, these awesome people have  much that is different:

1. One is fiction, the other real.
2. One has long hair (which is kinda scary), the other (most likely) didn't.
3. The one wore a tunic and boots the other a tunic and sandals.
4. One was a king, the other a military leader.

But they also had some things in common:

A. They fought in the name of their King.
B. They both brought the people into possession of the land that rightfully belonged to them.
C. Both Caspian and Joshua were posed with a challenge, the challenge written in
Joshua 24: 14 & 15.

The thing about this verse is this...while I think it's an awesome verse (they all are :}), most people couldn't tell you the whole verse. They remember Joshua's declaration: "Choose you this day who you will serve... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." But they couldn't tell you the rest of the challenge!

Here is the entire verse of fifteen, also fourteen, where the thought begins.

 Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

This verse has always been dear to me...especially verse 14. My parents came from lost families, and they truly have " put away the gods which your fathers served". Joshua makes the decision crystal clear... and Caspian made that decision.

**Bonus: Our family had a lovely wooden plaque made with our last name and a reference to hang in our home, to remind us of Joshua's cry "We will serve the LORD." However, a typographical error (thanks, Edmund ;} ) occurred and now our plaque reads

**OUR SURNAME HERE**

         Joshua 24:14

Which of, course, was a incredible mistake...to a verse that fit us even better...and still made the profession of loyalty to our God! (How He works in mysterious ways!)

If anyone can think of other ways Caspian might represent Joshua...please, leave me a comment and let me know!

Salvation in Narnia--- Lord Rhoop

Lord Rhoop's story was, I believe, promised to you in the last post. Rhoop had a past of loyalty to his king and country- Caspian IX and Narnia, respectively. When Miraz the usurped Caspian IX's throne and authority, he sent Lord Rhoop along with 6 other Telmarine lords on a quest to seek out new lands...or so he said. Miraz successfully got these last 7 faithful out of the way. Along their journey, they left 1 lord where he chose to settle down, 2 died under questionable circumstances and 3 were found, much later, sleeping under enchantment at Aslan's table. But the lord Rhoop had neither death, marriage, or dreamless sleep...he was pulled in by a mighty lure...pleasure.

When hearing of the Island Where Dreams Come True, Rhoop was enticed by the idea of a life of dreams; of an un-reality, so to speak. A life where nothing bad ever happens. A life of painlessness. A life where all you have to do to escape an ugly situation is simply wake up. At least, that 's what he thought. He was dreadfully wrong.

In actuality, the Island Where Dreams Come True was a land of torment, of nightmares.

Real. Life. Nightmares.

Rhoop's folly led in a man who rapidly became weak, frail, white-haired and wide-eyed with fear. Sleep would be sweet to a man taunted in real life by his own nightmares. But he could not get it. His only way of escape would be to leave...but how? How he survived in this land, we're not told, and it doesn't really matter. When he is beginning to leave on The Dawn Treader, he realizes he CANNOT leave. No one can...

Except Aslan.

Only the Son of the Emperor over the sea could bring one out...and he does. And wonder of wonders...

THE ISLAND IS DESTROYED.

Oh, how beautiful.

Jesus is the rest you need. Come to him. It's that simple. Just let go of all you think you've got. He is the living water. He is the Way, Truth and Life. He is El-Roi the God Who Sees Me, and El-Shaddai, the Almighty who nourishes us. Never again can we return to a state of being out of our Father's hands!

Salvation in Narnia---Frank & Helen

A long while ago, July of 2010 to be exact, I wrote a post about salvation pictured in Narnia through Jill Pole. You can Read It Here.  Just recently I was listening to Focus on the Family's rendition of  The Magician's Nephew (their entire Narnia series is, by the way, fantastic and accurate, plus hosted by Douglas Gresham) when something else struck me as being another amazing story of salvation: King Frank and Queen Helen.

Their story is probably the most subtle, next to Lord Rhoop's (which will come in a later post.) For Frank, the conversion is a simple, short conversation.

"Son," said Aslan to the Cabby. "I have known you long.  Do you know me?"
"Well, no, sir," said the Cabby. "Leastways, not in an ordinary manner of speaking. Yet I feel somehow, if I may make so free, as 'ow we've met before."
"It is well," said the Lion.  "You know better than you think you know, and you shall live to know me better still."

Salvation isn't a big fanfare-preceded, all-the-lights-trained-on-you event. It's a decision between you and God. An event certainly to be celebrated and shared, but also intimate. Frank had missed the country (the pre-knowledge state of early childhood) and longed for the sweetness of it. And it was granted him...along with the magnificent privilege of ruling the new land.

Helen's conversion isn't even recorded, but must come just after her husband's contact with Aslan. However, later, they are both described thus:

(Aslan) " Let us now proceed to the coronation of King Frank of Narnia and Helen his Queen."
The children now noticed these two for the first time. They were dressed in strange and beautiful clothes, and fromt heir shoulders rich robes flowed out behind them to where four dwarfs held up the King's train and four river-nymphs the Queen's. Their heads were  bare; but Helen had let her hair down and it made a great improvement in her appearance. But it was neither hair nor clothes taht maade them look so different from their old selves. Their faces had a new expression, especially the King's. All the sharpness and cunning and quarrelsomeness which he had picked up as a London cabby seemed to have been washed away and the courage and kindness which he had always had were easier to see. Perhaps it as the air of the young world that had doine it, or talking with Alan, or both. "Upon my word, " whispered Fledge to Polly. "My old master's been changed nearly as much as I have! Why, he's a real master now." 

How beautiful that changes a person's heart so it shows on his face!
May this be an encouragement to your day!