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118. Which Fantastical Stories Help Us Celebrate Human Life?
Fantastical Truth Podcast, Jun 28, 2022

Tilly
Reviews, Jun 24, 2022

The Wonderland Trials
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Shadow of Honor, Ronie Kendig
Lost Bits, Kerry Nietz
Rats of Dweltford, Matt Barron
Vivid, Ashley Bustamante
My Soul to Take, Bryan Davis
Into Shadow's Fire, Mark Castleberry
Deceived, Madisyn Carlin
Arena (2022 edition), Karen Hancock
Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers, N. J. McLagan
"In a city where debts are paid in blood, one young man will learn that everyone needs help sometimes if they want to survive." New in the Lorehaven library: A Matter of Blood, Lauren H Salisbury
Son of the Shield, Mary Schlegel
Maxine Justice, Galactic Attorney, Daniel Schwabauer
Mordizan, Alyssa Roat
Prentice Ash, Matt Barron
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Tilly
“Written in 1986, Frank E. Peretti’s novelette Tilly may feel melodramatic to today’s readers, but remains a tearful tale of brokenness and redemption.”
—Lorehaven on Jun 24, 2022

The Wonderland Trials
“Although indebted to a classic, The Wonderland Trials is inventive and colorful in its own right, abundantly able to charm and to intrigue.”
—Lorehaven on Jun 24, 2022

Rise of the Earthborn
“Societal intrigue plus steampunk flair and a dash of romance help make Emma Buenen’s Rise of the Earthborn a solid extra-biblical adventure.”
—Lorehaven on Jun 17, 2022

Elite
“Elite explores parallels to the early Church, beautifully intertwining faith and action in this high-stakes post-apocalyptic adventure.”
—Lorehaven on Jun 10, 2022

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118. Which Fantastical Stories Help Us Celebrate Human Life?
Fantastical Truth, Jun 28, 2022

117. Why Should You Build a Fantastical Lending Library? | with L.G. McCary
Fantastical Truth, Jun 21, 2022

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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Jill’s and Eustace’s Journey to ‘The Silver Chair’ Taught Me Faith and Obedience

Remembering God’s signs leads us through harsh winters of despair and darkness to find our Savior’s rest.
Elijah David on Feb 10, 2022
1 comment

For the last two years, I have passed through places dark as the hollow Underland that Jill and Eustace must cross in Lewis’s fourth Narnian chronicle, The Silver Chair.

COVID-19 lockdowns made me furloughed from a job I loved, waiting for an end to fear and uncertainty that never seemed to come. Eventually, I took a job I intended to last only a few months until my old position could reopen. Two months became nine months. My mental health suffered from daily stresses of long hours in an environment that carried almost physical weight of depression.

In The Silver Chair, frightening creatures capture Jill and Eustace and force them to travel underground in sunless lands. For me, those nine months felt just as abysmal. Just as Narnia’s heroes begin to question if there ever was a sun, I questioned whether I would ever emerge from the other side of that pit.

Puddleglum’s famous speech defying Underland’s queen puts the lie to her foolish, prideful declaration that there was never any world but hers. Yet I most resonate with Lewis’s early scene that sets the stage for Jill’s and Eustace’s entire journey.

Jill’s ignorance and first encounter with Aslan

At first, Jill Pole has no concept of Aslan and Narnia. Eustace only mentions their existence as a possible solution for his and Jill’s desire to escape school bullies. Jill suggests they reach out to Aslan with rituals, such as drawing a magic circle on the ground. Eustace quickly rejects these, saying those sorts of things “are rather rot. I don’t think he’d like them.”1

At first, Jill doubts Eustace. But eventually they call to Aslan. Immediately, with clear signs of divine providence, they stumble into Narnia—or rather, Aslan’s Country.

But their joy is short-lived. Jill’s bravado leads to Eustace tumbling over a cliff before a Lion. Left alone, Jill regrets coming to this new world at all. She soon meets a lion. Of course, this is the Lion, but Jill does not recognize him as Aslan, because Eustace hadn’t explained the details to her. Now Aslan explain why he has called them into Narnia—to seek and find the lost prince Rilian.2 Jill’s bravado has already made this task it more difficult.

Aslan gives Jill four signs to guide her and Eustace. This catechism must form the foundation of their journey, and Aslan commands her to “remember the Signs.”

Muddled Signs and unexpected deliverance

Of course, Jill doesn’t remember the Signs. After the difficulties of the journey and the lure of giant comforts, she stops reciting them every night. Our heroes actually fail to follow the first three Signs as clearly as Aslan commanded. But in the end, despite their failings, they rest between Aslan’s paws and find the story has still gone right. They even unintentionally free the gnomes of Bism to return to their own fantastic land beneath the earth’s crust.

Such eucatastrophe3 reflects God’s providence in our own lives. Often the failures and sorrows we create or endure bring unexpected blessings on the far side. We know that God works all things for the good of those who love him.4 As a friend of mine once put it, he weaves all the threads of our lives, the good and the bad, into his final tapestry. Though I cannot clearly state the purpose of my time in that terrible job, I know God used this time for my good by encouraging me through other people, and for others’ good of others by using me to encourage them).

During those nine months, and later days when despair threatens to steal my joy, I had to follow Jill’s example of reciting Aslan’s Signs. In my journey, one great truth has served as my light, the same truth that confronted Jill on the mountaintop: There is no other stream but Jesus from which we may drink and have life. For guidance and hope, we can only look to our good, not-safe, untamable God.

Even when world leaders and false ideologies cry out, “There is no world but ours,” we can rest, resist, and triumph in our testimony of Jesus and his salvation.

  1. The Silver Chair, chapter 1. ↩
  2. Aslan tells Jill, “You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you.” See The Silver Chair, chapter 2. ↩
  3. J. R. R. Tolkien coined this term to mean good catastrophe. ↩
  4. Romans 8:28. ↩
Elijah David
Elijah David lives and works in the Chattanooga area. He spends far too many nights reading when he should be sleeping and frequently finds his bookshelves have shrunk overnight. He is the author of Albion Academy, the first book in the Albion Quartet, and Paper and Thorns, the first novella in the Princes Never Prosper series. Though his only magical talent is putting pen to paper, Elijah believes magic lurks around every corner, if you only know how to look for it. He and his wife are busy raising a small Hobbit and a calico cat.
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  1. Steve says:
    February 10, 2022 at 5:39 pm

    I like what a woman on KLOVE radio said yesterday after being told her unborn son would have major medical problems. She prayed and fleeing a hurricane in Louisiana went into labor two months early. Her son was born early but was perfectly healthy. She said, ” At the end of the day, God has the Final say.”

    Reply

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.