We’ll Get Back

Every few years I travel back to the old, familiar places within books. During the spring I’ll find myself in Avonlea, dreaming with Anne and laughing with Gilbert. When July rolls around, I’m waiting expectantly for my letter of acceptance from Hogwarts to arrive and feeling again the thrill of hearing the words, “Yer a wizard!” In September I’m setting out with my best friend to Rivendell, and of course, I’m often having tea with Mr. Tumnus.

Yet each time I visit, it’s never quite the same.

It doesn’t matter that these are the exact same characters, the same places, woods and lanes, the same stories, even; each time I read them it’s a different experience. I’m different. I’m older.

I am the kind of person who hates change and wants everything to stay the same. Books are some of the only things that don’t change, but as I grow older I find that each time I read even the most familiar of books that it’s different for me. I no longer find it funny, or I now think it’s boring, or I see that my favorite character was wooden or annoying.

When this happens, I’m always left with a sting of disappointment. Something I had once known and now long for is gone, and I miss it. It has left me, along with a piece of my childhood.

A few days ago I was thinking this over when I suddenly recalled the Professor’s words at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

“You won’t get into Narnia again by that route. Eh? What’s that? Yes, of course you’ll get back to Narnia again someday. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it.”

Although going back to these places is never the same each time, I still learn something each time I go. There’s always something new to take away, and maybe it’s not the same as I remembered it, but it’s still good.

I’m not going back through the wardrobe, but I’m still getting back into Narnia.

Isn’t it the same with the Word of God? We don’t have the exact same blind faith and trust as we did as children, but as we grow older we never get too old to learn something vitally new and fresh from it. The Pevensie siblings never do get back to Narnia by going through the wardrobe. But they still get back. And even when they are too old to do even that, they have the promise from Aslan that someday they will return. It will be a different Narnia from the one they knew before, but they can rest in the promise of Aslan that it will be a better Narnia than the one they left and for which their hearts continually long.

We aren’t able to return to the children that we were. Now we’re grown up, and we have to live like we are. But that doesn’t mean that childhood is gone forever. No, we won’t get back to Narnia through the wardrobe, but we will get back in other ways. We’ll read our children the Narnia books and see the magical excitement in their eyes. We’ll re-watch the movies for the millionth time with someone who is only seeing them for the first time. We’ll have a sudden flashback of a special memory of reading them.

When we were younger, we were able to accept faith without question, and believed everything we were told. There was very little logic or reasoning, there was only simple belief and faith. But as we grow older, that childlike faith threatens to leave us. We know more about the world, and worries and fears bear down upon us and challenge what we once accepted. Still, remember what Jesus said,

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Mathew 18:3

Even though we are no longer children, that doesn’t mean we can’t be like children. Although we can’t return to innocent childlike faith, our faith can still be childlike. We can trust and obey Christ without needing to see ahead to the future, just like the Pevensie children have to trust Aslan when he tells them they are too old to come back to Narnia.

In Lewis’ dedication to his god-daughter at the beginning of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he wrote the following: 

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

You and I may never get back to Narnia through the wardrobe.

But we will get back.

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E. G. Runyan

E. G. Runyan is an aspiring author who spends most of her time working in her church community, writing stories, and losing at chess.

You can find her on her blog at https://emmathebard.wixsite.com/egrunyan where she posts twice a week on Christianity and creativity.

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