A Lesson from The Dawn Treader

Not too long ago, I got the great opportunity to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the latest installment of the modern Chronicles of Narnia movie series. In one word, it was amazing. No, not amazing–superb. Any person who has the opportunity to see this movie should see it.

Okay, so I got a little scared by a scene or two, but that’s another story.  But I’d like to discuss one of my favorite parts of the movie.

Probably during the first half of the movie, Lucy very much so envies her mature and older sister, Susan, who is in America. When Lucy, Edmund and cousin Eustace visit Narnia, one of the places they go to has an ‘invisible’ temple (she’s asked to cast a spell to make the ‘unseen seen’.) In the spell book, she finds a beauty spell that makes her look like her sister. Despite Aslan’s protests, she rips the page out of the book and takes it with her to the Dawn Treader. Then, in the middle of the night, she takes out the beauty spell, walks up to a mirror, and says the spell, getting the same results as the last time. Except this time, she’s taken into England, see what it would be like if she were like Susan.

The only problem was, she realized that she was almost wishing she didn’t exist.

She wakes up again, as the whole thing was a bad dream, and runs up to the mirror. In the mirror next to her reflection is Aslan. I can’t remember his exact words to her, but it had something to the effect of, “When you wish to be someone else, you cease to exist.”

Lucy wakes up once more–again, crazy dream–and finds the page of the spell still with her. Instead of using it, she crumples it up and throws it away.

From there, I kinda wanted to jump outta my seat and scream, “AMEN!!” but, despite the emptiness of the theater, there were still other people in it besides my family. And I didn’t really wanna scare them.

But it’s the truth. People–not just girls my age–try to act like a totally different person for the sake of being accepted. God made us individually and for a purpose. When we try to act like someone completely different, we’re avoiding that purpose. For example, if Lucy were like her older sister Susan, they would’ve never found Narnia in the first place.

In short, the moral is, don’t try to bog down your inner self. Live for God’s purpose, and celebrate the person God made you as. That’s what I’d like to do in 2011. Will you join me?

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. -Psalm 139:13-14

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. -Anne Dillard

Your sister in Christ, Rachel

Rachel is a 12 year old Christian homeschooler from Maine and is the daughter of one of our writers and message board administrator, Karen. She loves to write Christian fiction and devotionals for tweens and teen girls. When she’s not writing, Rachel loves photography, blogging and listening to music. She desires to encourage other tweens and young teens through her writings.