Another generation hears from Narnia.

When something hard is happening in life (and, really, something usually is) I find that moment between sleeping and waking to be the hardest one of all. I know Tinker Bell told Peter Pan in the movie Hook that it was a dreamy place, and he could always find her there, but you can’t trust fairies. Especially when they might be home-wreckers.

For me, that transition is almost painful some mornings. Not just the warm-bed-to-chilly-shower transition. It is the oblivion of sleep to the reality of daytime. The problems of the world have not gone away. The grief or the trauma or the illness or the dread was not just a bad dream. It is the truth that will walk with me all day long today. Again.

I. Must. Face. It.

Fortunately, I have ways to cope. Usually, I find the strength shortly after breakfast when I’ve had my prayer and Bible time, my exercise, my shower, and a bit of conversation with my wise and wonderful husband. But sometimes the turn is rather slow in coming. The other morning when I was suffering, he looked up from the news site on his iPad and said, “All right! They are making a movie of The Silver Chair!”

You may not understand how this suddenly righted the world for me. But that would be because you have not sat through untold hours of bedtime rituals while he read Narnia stories to our children. Therefore, you wouldn’t know that Puddleglum the Marshwiggle is one of our favorite C.S. Lewis characters. And you couldn’t possibly know that Puddleglum’s philosophy has carried us through many a dark day and scary night. In one voice, we quoted to each other:

“Life isn’t all fricassed frogs and eel pie, you know”

And there you have it, Dear Reader. A philosophy that will get you through the day. But maybe only if you get to know Puddleglum, of course, and understand that his love for Aslan is a love for Jesus. And that his determination to remain loyal to the Lion even if the Lion doesn’t exist is beautiful. And it probably works best if you already understand that “in this world we will have trouble, but fear not, because He has overcome the world.” (my paraphrase, of course.)

I knew my husband wasn’t all that excited about a movie that probably wouldn’t live up to the book anyway. The news had simply reminded him of a truth. And without having to go into a long conversation, he reminded me that God had been faithful to us for more than forty years of better and worse. He certainly wasn’t going to stop now.

And that woke me up.