"For Narnia"

Noelle is very into Narnia. After watching the movies with the family over Christmas break, several times a day she mentions how badly she wants to go to Narnia, when playing Wii she shouts "For Narnia" before making her move, every drawing or painting depicts Aslan the lion or Reepicheep the mouse. She is obsessed. A few weeks ago, she decided she wants to read the books. Mrs. Walker agreed to loan her personal copies for Noelle to use for her take home reading. Last night, she finished the first book in the series The Magician's Nephew. In addition to the reading, she has to complete some work about important themes and connections, so we were discussing what happened in the story. The paper asked for "the main idea". "It's a long book, there were a lot of big ideas." she says. I press in "Tell me some of them". Noelle provides a synopsis of several pieces of Digory's adventures and mistakes. She talks about how Aslan sings and nature grows and how that reminds her of Genesis' creation story. She remembers Aslan telling the beasts that all of belongs to them just like God has given us responsibility for our world. "You have a good heart, Noelle" I tell her. We move forward and discuss the finer points of the confusing circle of stewardship. - God gives us gifts, talents, husbands, children, jobs, houses, church communities... - He gives us the responsibility of using or investing them wisely - We learn to acknowledge that none of it is ours, and surrender full control to God - Our entire lives become a tool to bring God glory "But you don't have to write all that down" I tell my sweet daughter. A very relieved 8 year old notes that I was about to cry while talking about all that. "Because that lesson has changed our lives and brought us to where we are today - surrendering our family to God's purpose and joining Him in loving Ruth and Nancy." In the end we decided that Digory's story is about the inevitable truth that actions have consequences -in this world or in another Narnian world. What will be the impact of what you did yesterday?