"Till We Have Faces"

Wow! I just finished the best book I think I’ve ever read in my life. I’m serious. “Till We Have Faces” by C.S. Lewis. I feel like I should read it again just to try and grasp it all. If all the books in the world were this good, I would give up everything in my life just to read. (Not to say I haven’t considered this anyway.) I know I’m sounding a little freaky, but this book had so many amazing ideas in it. The character’s (Orual) main dilemna is the god’s avoidance or mysteriousness. “I say, therefore, that there is no creature (toad, scorpion, or serpent) so noxious to man as the gods. Let them answer my charge if they can. It maybe well be that, instead of answering, they’ll strike me mad or leprous or turn me into a best, bird or tree. But will not all the world then know (and the gods will know it knows?) That this is because they have no answer?
Then Orual goes on in life an realize things. She removes the veil she’s worn all her life.
“‘Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean, that’s the whole art of and joy of words. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all the time, idiot-like, been saying over an over, you’ll not talk about the joy of words’. A glib saying. I saw well they why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces.”
This totally describes me. Something inside is screaming to get out, but it can‘t be put into words. Or even if it can, I don’t have the courage to say it.
“I ended my first book with no answer. I know now, Lord why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.”
The answer: Jesus. He made all the indescribable things. He is the description. He is okay with me not being able to say things at times. He is okay when I am not willing to show my true face to Him.
I’m sure none of this makes sense. It‘s just a bunch of randomness floating through my head. But I rely think God spoke to me through this book. I’ve been struggling lately with...stuff. Junk at school, what the future will be like, who is God. But if we can only wade through all the distractions–words– He is always the answer. What else matters? We don’t always need words. We just need to be open with God. We need to let Him see our true faces.

Have a great weekend!