Take Courage

A couple of weeks ago, I started the book Becoming Mrs. Lewis, historical fiction centering on the life of Joy Davidman, wife of C. S. Lewis. I had known virtually nothing about her before reading this book, although I had a vague recollection that she died rather young and was the impetus behind Lewis' book A Grief Observed. Much to my dismay, about a third of the way through the book, Joy finds a lump in her breast. Its presence is downplayed by physicians in both the United States and England. Not until seven years later would a broken leg reveal the cancer that had spread throughout her body. She was miraculously granted another few years with Lewis but died at age 45. (I always seem to be stumbling into books and movies where a character gets cancer.)

The book was full of segments of Joy's letters to Lewis, including many parts where they talk about his work and hers, passages of each they enjoyed, or references to happenings in The Chronicles of Narnia that her boys loved. It was while I was steeped in Lewis and Joy that I received this gem of a gift, ordered for me long before I had started reading this book and without any knowledge that I would do so:

If I'm holding it too far away for you to tell what it says, it reads "Courage, dear heart," a quote of Lewis' from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It is spoken by Aslan to Lucy when she and her fellow sailors are in fear for their lives near the island where dreams, bad ones, come true. He whispers these words to her and then leads their vessel out of the darkness to safety.

Sometimes having cancer feels like a bad dream has come true or I somehow ended up in the wrong story. It's in these moments I need the strong but kind reminder to take courage. Just as Aslan was with the sailors on the Dawn Treader and guided them on, He is with me in my dream-come-true, too. I just need to trust Him and take courage.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." (Ps. 23:4)

I wore this emblem of courage today to my third appointment for my clinical trial. I will take courage and will not fear. God is with me.