This weekend was busy for Jeff - preaching, a short paper, and a project were some of the things he was working on. This meant for me that I had some time to fill. On Saturday I enjoyed putzing around at Diddos (a Christian second hand store here in Holland - it is so big and fun! Anyone who has never been, totally needs to visit.), Bed Bath and Beyond, and Target (where I found the second season of Downton Abbey - who knew that was out in the States yet?! A quick run down of the show: this British miniseries aired on BBC and was so popular that it made its way to PBS here in the States. Season one begins the morning after the Titanic sunk. The story is of a wealthy family in England and all those who work in their home. The first season spans between the Titanic to the brink of WWI. The second is primarily about WWI and how no matter where you are economically, you are effected by the war. A lovely show. Everyone should watch it :)). It was a really relaxing afternoon.
My sister-in-law has also been home for the past week for Spring Break. We got to go out to eat, see a musical and spend many hours together as Jeff worked on his projects. Cassie and I had so much fun! There were times we laughed so hard we cried. I am so happy to has her as a sister now too :).
One book I re-read lately has been The Last Battle, from C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. I feel like it has been influencing much of what I think about. One of the many beautiful parts is when they have all begun to go "further up and further in" towards Aslan's garden. The group has realized that the place where they are is the new, real Narnia. They are trying to figure it out, how they are looking at something completely new but also exactly what they have known. The narration picks up, and says,
"It is hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia. Perhaps you will get some idea of it, if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among the mountains. And in the wall of the room opposite to the window there may have been a looking glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of the sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different - deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that."
I feel as though I have had moments like that, when you can smell the dust and see the colors more deeply than you can in the real thing. My aunt Hedy used to have this large blue mirror in her bedroom when I was little and she still lived at Grandpa and Grandma's house. I used to go up there and spend time looking in the mirror. Behind me I could see out the two windows to the large lawn and then to the corn fields past. I remember that in that mirror the corn always looked richer and the sky always bluer. I remember sitting and just watching the reflection, feeling a sense of excitement. When I read this part of the book, I was amazed that C.S. Lewis described the new creation with that same feeling. Can it be that we get glimpses of the new creation everyday if we pause to look at them? How beautiful is creation now - this of what it will be to come! I guess I wanted to share that because it got me pretty excited and made me smile :).
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