Skip to the End

     I am not a reader. My children are readers. I've read Peretti books but when there was a lot of narrative I skipped over it to the action. I haven't read any of the Narnia books but we have them dramatically presented on CD from Focus on the Family. Most of them are pretty good. Recently Jeromy went through a phase where he was listening to The Last Battle CD over and over again during a weekend. The last few paragraphs of the book are so desciptive:
     Lucy said, "We were afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often."
     "No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?"
     Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.
     "There WAS a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are-as you used to call it in the Shadowlands-dead. The term is over; the holidays have begun. the dream is ended; this is the morning." 
     And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.
     When I first heard those words my heart leaped 'cause they expressed what my mind already knew. A great reminder that this life is not all there is to "life". It's just the beginning. Of course Jesus had already spoken those great words of peace that I memorized in VBS all those years ago.
     “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." John 14:1-6
     I am one whose heart is easily troubled. I am one who needs reminders, road markers, signs pointing me in the right direction. I am easily distracted. I just wish I remembered these words before I slumped down in the valley. The valleys do come. They vary in depth but the way out of them all are the same. Remember who you are and whose you are. Another reminder from a dear friend of mine, "Don't forget your fork 'cause the best is yet to come."