It’s 4:00 a.m. again, and I’m wide awake. Sometimes it’s 3:30, sometimes it’s 5:30, but never is it after the dawn when I awaken. The house is dark and quiet. It’s cloudy so there’s no moonlight. My body aches in various places from the arthritis fighting with temperature changes. The ice pack is really cold in the coolness of the house. And it’s the night before All Saints Day – you know, Halloween night with its valiant but quietly desperate attempt to sweeten the night of its ghosts and goblins and monsters.

There have been times when I’ve awakened from a nightmare or with weariness after a night-long struggle with some worry, feeling worn out and fearful of the day. But lately, there is a goodness I have found in awakening in darkness and quiet, no matter what the spiritual attacks in my dreams were about. The goodness is not in the darkness but in awakening with peace in my heart due to a strengthening and comforting whisper I hear in the darkness.

The goodness is not in the darkness but in awakening with peace in my heart due to a strengthening and comforting whisper I hear in the darkness.

That whisper is pictured in C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It is a whispered hope for every night-treader among us who longs for a new and better day. The whispered hope is found in chapter 12, “The Dark Island.”[1] In that chapter, Lucy, Edmond, Eustace, and Caspian sail towards what they believe is an island but turns out to be only darkness. Lewis tells the reader to imagine a railroad tunnel so long, or so twisty, that you cannot see the light at the end.

“The same idea was occurring to everyone on board. “We shall never get out, never get out,” moaned the rowers. “He’s steering us wrong. We’re going round and round in circles. We shall never get out.”

But they’re in the depths of darkness, when all on the ship are slipping into despair, when all hope seems lost and all they feel is fear, Lucy calls out to Aslan:

“Lucy leant her head on the edge of the fighting-top and whispered, ‘Aslan, Aslan, if ever you loved us at all, send us help now.’ The darkness did not grow any less, but she began to feel a little – a very, very little – better…

“There was a tiny speck of light ahead, and while they watched a broad beam of light fell from it upon the ship…It did not alter the surrounding darkness, but the whole ship was lit up as if by searchlight. Lucy looked along the beam and presently saw something in it. At first it looked like a cross, then it looked like an aeroplane, then it looked like a kite, and at last with a whirring of wings it was right overhead and was an albatross…It called out in a strong sweet voice what seemed to be words though no one understood them…no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, ‘Courage, dear heart,” and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan’s, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.”

Aslan in the Narnia stories is a picture of Jesus Christ. Appearing in the Dawn Treader as an albatros coming out of the light points to Jesus as the Light of the World. In John 1:1-13, Jesus is the Word of God of whom it is said that all things were made through him, in him is life that is the light of men. And the darkness of night? Verse five states plainly, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Jesus reassures us in John 8:12 that he is “the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

So, why is it that I often hear now in the middle of the night his whispered words to me, “Courage, Dear Heart”?

When Julia passed away two and a half years ago something fundamental began to shift in my perspective on the night. Having my oneness with her ripped out of my grasp by our enemy Death, I entered into a deep darkness that made my heart desperate for relief from the crushing weight of it.

The shift started with God drawing me deeper into the Scriptures that affirm his infinite love for me as his child and the Scriptures that reflect his design and purpose for our world. I discovered to my amazement that I had lived my life as if the night was the end of the day, rather than the day being the end of the night. I realized that I had spent much of my life arriving at nighttime exhausted and craving the relief of sinking into unconscious sleep – to somehow escape the responsibilities or miseries of the day I had just lived. And when I couldn’t sleep, worrying that the treadmill I was on wouldn’t end well.

But the world God designed for us out of the goodness of his heart is meant to end in a glorious day filled with his light and goodness.

The comfort of God is a living hope in the heart of every “Lucy” among us – that all things will end in goodness and light – not this terrible darkness that we have sailed into and imagine will never end. [2] C.S. Lewis in a letter where he lays out the basic themes of the Narnia books, says that the Dawn Treader is about a “spiritual journey, especially Reepicheep.” The name Dawn Treader suggests to us new horizons but also how their ship was constantly heading east into Aslan’s land located in the dawn.

So now, this morning when the dawn finally arrives I will greet it with the deep joy of all other Lucys, those possessing an absolute certainty that God has given us another day in which to watch with him through the sorrows of life for the goodness and grace he is sure to bring.

Courage, dear DawnChaser,

the night will soon be over!

Father, thank you for reminding me in the darkness of this night that I am moving toward light. Thank you for reminding me that this is not all there is. Thank you for reminding me, as it was in the beginning, life begins in the evening but ends in the day – a day of creation and your glory revealed. Thank you that this long night of slavery to sin and death will one day be over for humanity and we will enter the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ – forever free of the nighttime miseries, conflicts, demon persecution and suffering.
Amen

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[1] Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis, (New York: Collier Books, © 1952 by Trustees of the Estate of C. S. Lewis), pp. 150-162

[2] 1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷ so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹ obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”