One layer at a time...right?

I read a lot...well...I used to read a lot. Not so much in the past few weeks since I have been laid off from work. (I realize that makes no sense because I have all the time in the world, but bare with me folks...my routine is in shambles. Just ask the gym when was the last time I graced them with my presense...it's not pretty. ha)

Anyway -

I was sharing with some friends one day about how I felt when I came out 'officially' to my now ex-wife, family and friends (those will be blog entries soon...promise). That was really the first step I took in regards to finally deciding to embrace what God made me to be. Everytime I take a step into the direction of being happy with who I am that is like another layer getting peeled right off.


The best way I can describe it is a quote from one of the Chronicles of Narnia books. There is a section in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Eustace...a selfish, deceptive boy is turned into a dragon. Then Aslan, the Christ figure comes to save him... It reads like this....

"…I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast off their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the Lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I were a banana. So I started to go down into the well for my bath. But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well….

…the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? So I scratched away for the third time… but as soon
as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the Lion said… 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty desperate now. So I just lay flat on my back and let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.

Then he caught hold of me—I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but
only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that… I'd turned into a boy again. After a bit the Lion took me out and dressed me."


That quote gets me everytime. Hard for me to express into words. But I wanted
to share this with you.