"... Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing i expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me and one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. you may think that, being a dragon, i could have knocked any lion out easily enough. but it wasn't that kind of fear, i wasn't afraid of it eating me, i was just afraid of it - if you can understand. well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes, and i shut my eyes tight. but that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."
"you mean it spoke?"
"i dont know. now that you mention it, i dont think it did,but it told me all the same. and i knew id have to do what it told me, so i got up and followed it. and it led me a long way into the mountains. and there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. so at last we came to the top of a mountain id never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. in the middle of it there was a well...
i knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it... and i thought if i could get in there and bathe, it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me i must undress first. mind you, i dont know if he said any words out loud or not.
...oh, of course, i thought, thats 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, mu whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after and illness, or as i was a banana....
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, thats alright, said i, it only means i had a smaller suit on underneath the first one, and ill have to get out of it too. so i scratched and tore again and this under-skin peeled off beautifully ad out it steeped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe....
well, exactly the same things happened again. and i thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have i got to take off? ... 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... '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 and let him do it.
the very first tear he made was so deep that i thought it had gone right into my hear. and when he began pulling off the skin, 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 off a sore place. it hurts like billy - oh but it IS fun to see it coming away....
well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as i thought id 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 id no skin on - and threw me into the water. it smarted like anything but only for for a moment. after that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as i started swimming and splashing i found that all the pain had gone from my arm. and then i saw why. if turned into a boy again..."
there really is no way for words to better describe the beauty of pain. walking faithfully with the Lord brings about so many moments/periods of us thinking we had repented and our Heavenly Father having to come in and claw. away. our filth and throw us into the well of his grace. and it hurts, and it doesn't make sense, but...
"...we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV)
Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow.
difficult or easy, Praise the Father.
abc.
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