White Witch

At the risk of being called a nerd, I will be taking a break from the modern dysfunctional family to bring something that has been on my heart these last couple of days. Several days ago, for the first time in my life I started reading the children's classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I know, I know, it took me long enough. Many, if not all of you, I'm sure are familiar with the story of four kids finding themselves in a completely different world after trying to hide in a wardrobe. There are obvious parallels between Aslan and Jesus, as well as The White Witch and evil in general. But more lately I began viewing the witch slightly different. Still evil? Yes. But rather than just looking at her as a human embodiment of evil I looked closer and found a very much more specific interpretation.

Now, I never read the book until now, but I remember being a little kid and watching the BBC miniseries as often as possible, and when Walden Media finnally gave the story a big screen shot, LOTR was all finished, and it was the next logical place to go for nerdy obssesivness. Anyway, ever since I can remember I have felt this deep deep connection with the charater named Edmund. Personality-wise we were pretty much the same. He is the third of four children, as I was for most of my life growing up before highschool. He teased his younger sister all the time, as I did mine. Anyway, as the story goes Edmund falls into Narnia while following after his younger sister. The White Witch then spots him, makes him warm up to her and then promises him things that she cannot and has no intention to deliver. As the story goes on the book describes that Edmund knew in his hear the witch was evil, and yet did everything in his power to defend her and do her will.

How often does that happen? How often are we seduced, and taken by some mighty unseen force that eventually has us under its power. Let me back track a moment. When Edmund first meets the witch, he's dealing with alot. He has left his parents. In the positional order which he was born, I can affirm the fact that it is not easy being the third of four. Two people are above you telling you what to do, The youngest is the one that gets the attention, and the best way to get noticed is to be a pain in everyone's butt. This of course always ends in getting in trouble, but in this endless vicious cycle the bottom line is, being in or around the middle is miserable. You feel underappreciated at the least, and unloved at most. When he meets the White Witch she promises him everything he could ever want in life. She promises him to first, be a prince that she can love and give everything too, and second, that one day he will become king and rule over Narnia. Bad Situation.

We see it all over, and it's usually the cause bad marriages, and stressed relationships. We don't get what we want, then something comes along and promises us something they can never give us. For many a man it usually has to do with porn. It could also be a drug addiction, alcohol addiction, anything that demands our lives. All these things though, porn, drugs, alcohol, etc. have two things in common: 1. They promise to fulfill our lives. That deep empty hole we keep trying to feel, they promise us they will fill it, and that they will give us everything we could every want, and 2. They consistently, without fail, destroy our lives. But they're no happy with a quick kill, they slowly work their way into our souls until we become bound to them and they slowly destroy our lives. They are our White Witch's. They come with promises of hope fulfilled, and desires meant. But the story doesn't end there..

Edmund promises the witch to return with his brother and sisters, when he returns without them though, things go horribly wrong. Edmund realises he is no longer in the witch's good graces, he was only a pawn, a horrible blow to an already troubled middle child. Not only was he only a pawn, but he is now a slave to her demands, he is forced on pain of being turned to stone to follow and serve, that which wants his family dead. Oh snap. Didn't see that one coming. One person under God is bad for satan, two is a major threat, but a family? To not only have two people under God, but to have those two raise up even more for the cause of Christ? Satan hates your family. Let me repeat that so you can get the gravity of my words, Satan HATES your family. Sin is from the bowels of hell, and encouraged by satan. Addiction to anything but Jesus, is sin. By being addicted to something, you are saying, "This is my saviour, this is what I love, and what loves me in return, I don't care if it is destroying my family, it loves me." By submitting yourself to something, anything other than God, you become a slave to that which wants your family dead.

I love heroic endings, and The Lion, the witch, and the Wardrobe has, by far one of my favorites. It doesn't come across quite as well in the movie as it does in the book, but here it is: Edmund destroys the source of the witch's power. While all these mighty and coragous warriors are facing the white witch head on, Edmund knows the source of her power, and knows her evil, and rather than facing her head on he destroys her wand, nearly losing his own life. If we could all be so brave, and Edmund was only a boy. What does it take for us to overcome? I am no better than anyone else who may or may not be reading this. I have my white witch to destroy and overcome, and it has taken me many many years now, and caused much heart break, but the bottom line is it comes down to one fact: God gave us a freedom of choice, and in Christ we are promised in His word to be MORE than conquerers. When we realize and acknowledge that promise in Christ, and we accept and recieve that promise, then we have the strength. So next time you sit down, and the computer is in front of you, or a bottle, or needle or whatever, ask yourself: "Do I really want this? Is this worth losing my family over? Is this worth a slow and painful self destruction? Is this more important to me than what God has for me?"

Like I said, I have my own white witch to overcome, not long ago I felt completely hopeless about it. I honeslty believed I couldn't win. But now that I've seen what I've seen in this story, now that I know Christ has made  me more than I conquerer I know I can overcome. It's important to note that the darkness wont survive in the light, I can't stress the importance of confessing your issues to others and having them hold you accountable, the darkness will hate it, because it will die. Recently I went to a group called Celebrate Recovery, and though they didn't address my particular problem I felt a strengthening in my spirit as I sat in a circle of believers, confessed my problems and had these men that knew very little about supporting me and giving me hope by something as small as someone rubbing my shoulder, and others saying "It'll be ok, we'll be keeping you in a prayers." Maybe I stuttered THE WHITE WITCH MUST BE DESTROYED, otherwise it will destroy you.

Families are so 30 years ago

I haven't done an actual post on my thoughts or opinions or anything in a very long time. Why? Because I felt weird and repetitive. However I got arrested with an absolutely insane idea this morning. Absolutely ludicrous. A string of thoughts led me to one single thought, and at the risk of...well whatever it is I'm risking, I'm sharing about it. What was that thought? You ask yourself....wait for it....Family is dead. BOOM!!! Mind bomb. Marriage and family find their roots deep inside God. In early early days where evil abounded there was no talk of family. People were into human sacrifice and self indulgance. In the beginning GOD, not Allah, not Buddah, not Ba'al, but GOD created man. He then created woman so that these to people could have union together, and share in each others triumphs and failures. God then BLESSED, not cursed, them with a seed in order to populate and cover the earth.
Family is no longer really taken seriously anymore. The divorce rate is at over 50%, abortion is not only accepted in some circles, but actually fought for. How many of the marriages remaining in tact are actually worth their weight? The politicians we entrust to run our country can't keep their own families together. How many poloticians do we see every year getting caught in some kind of scandal with another woman. It's ridiculous. Why does disaster and destruction run so rampant in American homes? Because people just don't care anymore. Our culture thrives on looking out for number one. Men have an obssesion with being in control, thriving in their jobs, moving ahead, and doing whatever it takes to get a leg up ahead of the next guy, (I'm not speaking for woman, because I'm not one). Even men in the christian community are obssesed with thriving and getting ahead, they justify by saying it's Gods will for them to prosper above all other people, it's His will for their bank accounts to be  full, and make a bunch of money.
Does God want us to prosper? Yes, but if our marriage is dissolving, are kids are withdrawn, and the family is either standing on its last leg or no legs at all, WE ARE NOT PROSPERING!!! God chose us to further His kingdom, and be a ministry to those around us. Neglecting our kids, ignoring our wives, and putting work second to our family IS NOT being a ministry. Are we, as men, to provide for our families? Absolutly, but raising them in Gods word, praying with them, and nurturing their everlasting souls is FAR more important then green paper that, in the end, will amount to ABSOLUTLY NOTHING!!! We always have the temporary on the mind, what can we do to solve this problem and get it over? God however has our eternity in mind. God doesn't care about putting a band-aid on and forgetting something, he cares about what will happen in the rest of your eternal life. In the great movie Gladiator it was put like this, "What we do in life echoes in eternity."
Work is not the only factor in destroying families and marriages, but it is what I believe to one of two big components. I'm leaving it at this today, but number 2? I am coming after you!

Apologies

It came to my attention that recent installments of my current project were considered offensive, and vulgar. I am sincerely sorry for anything I have written and posted that was offensive to readers. I started writting a story I was doing well with, I became proud of myself and no longer cared what anyone else thought of it. I used excuses like "realisitic", I defended it in my mind telling myself it was to target a non-christian audience. The problem is, what good is my witness when my witness is no different from the world. As a result, I've deleted my last two installments, feeling as though they were the most offensive, and I will be re-writting them. Same basic story, only told for a much broader audience, and a lot less offensive. Again my deepest apologies to anyone who has read and was offended, as well as my church and family both of whom I very poorly represented. I am very sorry.