Miracles and The Black Stallion

I finished Miracles by C.S. Lewis late last night.

Finishing this book was a miracle in itself.

It was so difficult to understand in places.

I imagine that I will be able to come back to this book in the future and be more equal to it.

If I had to use an analogy, reading this book was like riding a stallion when I am really only ready for a healthy, full-sized mare-of-a-book.

But the things I did understand on this ride were glorious.

For instance, Lewis compares the bodies we will have in heaven to horses and our using them there to horsemanship.

This quote was especially meaningful to me because we've been listening to the audio of The Black Stallion by Walter Farley all week.

(The Lord speaks in coincidence.) 

If you know this book, you know that Farley doesn't romanticize horses and riding like other authors do.  The horse in his story, The Black, is such a wild, magnificent, powerful horse that he is also impossible for a human being to ride without risking his life.

Once The Black is let loose to run as nature allows him, the horse always goes so fast that any reigns cut deep into the boy-rider's hands, causing him to grasp the horse's mane for dear life sometime during every ride until the horse grows tired enough to slow down.  The boy usually finishes each ride with clumps of horse hair mixed with the blood and cuts on his hands.

You would think this story would cause me to fear horses and riding, but in fact, it compelled me to tell my husband just a few days ago, "You know, I'd really like to learn to run on horseback..."

So that's why this quote by Lewis struck me so.

About the bodies we will have in glory, Lewis says, "Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even a physical one?  These small and perishable bodies have been given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys.  We must learn to manage: not that we may someday be free of horses altogether but that someday we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining, and world-shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King's stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King, but how else- since He has retained his own charger- should we accompany Him?

Jesus' physical body ascended into Heaven we know. And somehow, we will be there with Him with solid enough arms to embrace Him and solid enough legs to stand before Him.

I want to be ready to take the reigns of that glorious, heavenly body, equal the task of taking my first steps on Heaven's grass, my first stroll with Jesus.

We also know this life prepares us for the next somehow.  So I take the reigns of this humble life again.  It's just an old pony, but with it, the Lord teaching me to ride. No. Not just ride, The Lord will teach me to run!