beauty and the break down

I think my "favorite" book is generally the last one I've read. Upon completing The Scent of Water I fell in love and declared it favorite. After reading The Great Divorce...I felt the same. Today I finished Till We Have Faces and I could make the exact same claim. The important thing is not, however, which is the favorite, but that each left an impact on my heart. Must remember to use the word "favorite" less often.

Till We Have Faces was a book that I needed in my life at this moment. The main character is lost, feels ugly, worthless, and indulges in self-pity. She has a skewed view of love and feels she is doing what is best by those she "loves" by making them rely on her...oh wait, she reminds me of myself. For a good portion of the book I hated her for these reasons, but as I watched her sink deeper and deeper into herself I began to feel and overwhelming amount of pity (mixed with gratitude because God had never allowed me to sink to the depths that she did) for Orual. Lewis is a master storyteller. He weaves worlds that seem as real as the one you are sitting in and draws you in with the incredible depth of his characters and the beautiful way in which he describes...everything. Reading this book made me fall in love with stories all over again. Not only written stories, but the beautiful one that God is writing for me. I love looking back and seeing how much he has changed me and how he continues to change me. The end of this book gave me chills. I nearly cried at work because of the power of the things that were said. I contemplated writing it here, but then I remembered that even if only one or two people read this post I want those two people to read this book and experience for themselves the beauty of story and God's infinite love.

The breakdown came later. One of my dearest friends called me today to tell me she was getting a divorce. I could not believe it and I genuinely did not know how to respond. I wanted to cry for her. To give her a hug and tell her that I would always be there for her to lean on, but that is not always my place. She does not live here and I cannot get to her so leaning on me will be of little support. She does not have the faith that I have in God, and so I am fervently praying that he uses this time to draw her close to him because he is the ultimate source of comfort. There is little that I can do (though I know he can use me to help comfort her), but he can mend her heart. He can reach in and fix all of the broken places because divorce, as I have said before, is a terrible thing. It is a ripping apart of self and that is not an easy mend...perhaps I will give her The Scent of Water.
Not to self: Buy more copies of that book