3D Trip to Narnia

I went to see Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Katherine, Austin, and his family today. I love those movies (and the books) so much! Lewis was a genius. His portrayal of Aslan is pretty much just the way I picture Jesus. Aslan is so great and powerful. He's this majestic lion, he can be scary and intimidating. But at the same time he's this great fuzzy, lovable lion who the children can run and play with. They can bury their faces in his mane and cry or laugh. There are these beautiful scenes where the children frolic (that's like the only word that works to describe it) in the grass and just play. I love it. I love thinking of Jesus like that too, someone I can talk to about anything, hug and laugh with, but also someone who is the Lord of the earth and therefore powerful and terrifying, but great and majestic and loving and caring.

The movie was great! There were a few scenes I just LOVE in that movie. One of the good points is that Aslan doesn't do everything for the children. Like there are all these swords that have to be placed in the middle of Aslan's table to get rid of the evil demons that are taking over. I mean Aslan theoretically could have just gathered all the swords himself and the voyage would never have even had to happen. Then when most are finally gathered, Eustice (sure i spelled that wrong) gets the last sword and goes to the table to put it on the table. Now Aslan could have just transported Eustice to the table, but instead Eustice has to fight against his own fears and disbeliefs to get the sword to the table. All through our lives we wonder why God doesn't just do things for us, but if he did, think of all the things we wouldn't learn! If Aslan had done everything for the children, they wouldn't have changed and grown and learned. Eustice went from an absolutely abominable brat to a strong and courageous young man. Aslan helps the children, bringing them close to the solutions so they can reach the answers. He never gives them more than they can bear to do, but he does make them do things themselves. He cares and loves and provides, but he doesn't spoon feed them.

Then Lucy is in the tower reading a spell to help the weird little one-footed men. The whole movie Lucy struggles with not feeling beautiful. She's constantly comparing herself to her older sister, Susan and wishing to be that beautiful. She finds a spell for changing herself to look like Susan. She dreams she now looks like Susan, but suddenly she, Lucy, no longer exists. Her brothers never got to go to Narnia, bc Lucy wasn't there to discover Narnia. She comes back from her dream, still looking in the mirror, and sees Aslan. He tells her that she doubts her own value too much, and she must stop running from who she is. Jesus makes us as he wants us to be! We can't compare ourselves to everyone around us, wishing to be like this person, or look like that. We're made as we are, and we must stop doubting ourselves, because we are loved and made who we are.

Eustice is a bit of a brat pre-dragon transformation. He gets super greedy, takes dragon treasure, and becomes a dragon. He learns so much over this trial, and he and Reepacheep the mouse become fast friends. Bemoaning his unfortunate predicament, Eustice is sad about becoming a dragon. Reepacheep tells him that "Extraordinary things happen to extraordinary people." Yeah, bad things happen. It had to suck to turn into a dragon! But because of that, Eustice was able to do extraordinary things, and save tons of lives. He changed and grew and became a wonderful boy because of this trial.

And now my very favorite part of the entire movie/book. When Eustice is still a dragon, Aslan appears to him. Eustice attempts to scratch his dragon skin off, but he can't do it, Aslan has to do it for him. He says later that it was the best experience. He said how he tried to do it on his own, make the change, but he couldn't. He had to let Aslan do it. And yeah, it hurt a bit, but it was good, like pulling a thorn out of your foot. I love that best. We can't make the journey of life on our own, it's simply not possible. But Jesus can. We have to let Him. We've got to realize we're not strong enough, and accept Christ's strength to do the job for us.