What’s he up to? I thought, as I ran into my son’s toy lion again. This time it was sitting on a middle step of the stairway. The toy had been traveling around the house for a few days now, presumably moved by my son for his own reasons. Because he is twelve, mostly nonverbal, and on the autism spectrum, it can be hard to determine the logic behind my boy’s actions, this one included. Often, my husband and I have to let go of our desire to know what is going on in our son’s head, and keep trying to move forward with what we do know.
Sometimes, however, we get it right. A good example of this would be my son’s tendency to run upstairs when I was doing laundry downstairs. This, we learned, was because he didn’t like the spin cycle. Perhaps it just seemed too out of control to him, or the mechanical whir sounded wrong. Regardless, we now time our loads of wash outside of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, since the laundry room sits so close to where we eat in the kitchen.
I thought it would work the same way this time, that my brain would let go of the itinerant lion and pursue other things. But, as days passed, it became obvious that the lion wasn’t going to let go of me. I felt compelled to photograph this toy that my son has had since he was a toddler. It counts in four languages when you pull on its tail. It growls in satisfaction, as if having eaten a good meal. And, for whatever reason, it was filling some kind of need in my son, who kept it nearby as one might an icon or amulet. What was he drawing from it? What did it mean?
My primary reaction was to regard it as a protector, not as a predator. Perhaps that is because I so love C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe series, whose protagonist is a messianic lion named Aslan. In the books, Aslan is a regal, wise, and profoundly loving character who recruits children to meet challenges in an alternate world called Narnia. Though these are hardly trivial challenges, his summons involve life-and-death battles against evil entities bent on ruling—or destroying—Aslan’s kingdom. And while the lion always gives clear instructions and shows up when he is needed, he does not accompany the children every step of the way. They are called to remember his words in situations in which their liege lord seems absent or is misrepresented by his enemies.
The connection between my son’s toy and Aslan got me thinking about the similarities I share with the children in the stories. They’re constantly led on new adventures, they face serious tests to their faith in the lion. Often, it is hardest to remember who and what he is when they most need to. The world they find themselves in sometimes chips away at their beliefs, even the most fundamental one: that he exists and is deeply involved in their lives.
Perhaps you see where I am going with this. I am beginning to realize that although I have called myself a Christian for decades, there are many—too many—days in which I have not lived like one at all. Like the fictional children, I forget that God is present to me and genuinely cares for me as I get hooked in the mouth by this or that urgent circumstance. Or maybe it’s not so much a crisis as it is a sense of fatigue. It takes so much work for (1) a survivor of childhood abuse and (2) someone who struggles tooth and nail for her mental health, to find God, let alone rest in His presence.
And when I do come up for air and remember that He is here, I am more liable to feel guilty for forgetting Him than happy to return to His loving arms. And let’s not forget the healthy dose of disbelief that dogs me night and day: Me? God wants someone both quivering and hard-hearted like me to call His own?
And so I stay away. Keep my distance. Say my prayers in the morning and plow into the day as if my life were entirely my own to defend and prosper.
In essence, I live my life apart from the One who made me. Or if He creeps to the edge of my consciousness, I brace for some kind of cruelty or condemnation on His part. After all, He’s perfectly positioned to hurt me if He wants. He knows everything about me.
This is where the mind of a childhood abuse survivor can still go, even after I have received so much healing. Even after many people have shown me copious amounts of kindness and goodness. It’s those first few years of childhood that seem to count the most. The imprint received there lasts for years. For some of us, we might have to wait until we arrive in heaven for it to be totally removed. (Mind you, I hold onto hope for further healing in this department. You never know with that “not a tame” Lion.)
And so I am profoundly indebted to my son for holding up a mirror to my soul and letting me see what’s been going on undetected for a long while. I need God to keep popping up in different locations in my life so that I can remember Him. I need Him to not give up on me, though it must be somewhat maddening to love someone as stubbornly unbelieving as me.
Let me rephrase that: It’s not that I don’t believe; I just devotedly believe in all the wrong things.
Years ago a dear friend said to me: “Rebecca, if God were angry with you, you’d be incinerated.” Something in me must have absorbed the truth of that statement, because I have remembered it all these years. Here I am, still walking around without even an eyelash singed.
The book of Exodus records that when Moses asked to see God, his request was honored, as God paid him a most intimate visit by appearing in a mysterious form of a cloud before him. As He passed before the prophet, He said of Himself: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod. 34:6).
How I wish I could brand these words onto my heart so that I would never doubt or forget God again. In the meantime, perhaps I must be satisfied with praying the simple prayer: “Lord, please keep popping up. Everywhere. More and more, so that I remember You as You are. My Aslan.”
Whatever it takes, right? Nothing overtakes the Lion in importance in our lives. Not our past, not our futures. Not even the troubles of the present. We just need to know that our Protector is here, even when we cannot see him, and that we are never, ever alone.
Amen.
