inner dragonness

i have a terrible confession to make. it's terrible because i have shunned such practices for years and years... and here am i, getting into them myself. ready? i have been listening to books on tapes (ahhh...mom, i'm sorry!)! i got the complete audio set of the chronicles of narnia for my birthday and have been listening to it as i drive around town. (the radio stations in littleton are horrid, we cannot find one we like! oh how i miss rick and bubba!!!) right now, i am listening to the voyage of the dawn treader. i read the whole series a few years ago and truly enjoyed it... it seems i'm getting totally different things as i listen to it. so often i am struck by something in the story and just have to sit and mill on it a while. this morning, as i was driving into work, the story went on that one of the characters, eustes (who knows on the spelling of that?!), was somehow turned into a dragon. as it goes, it seems he actually became on the outside what he had been all along on the inside-an absolutele terror. when he first discovers his dragonness, he is frightened, but then immediately he is excited-he can finally get back at all of those people who have been mean to him...but then, very soon after that feeling comes another one all together-he gets very sad and lonely as he realized his dragonness separates him from all humans everywhere. he is only a dragon for a short time, but is absolutely miserable the entire time! he ends up meeting up with his "friends" (the "mean" ones) and somehow sharing with them that he is no dragon, but their friend/cousin eustes. they, at once, feel bad for him and as they interact with him...we find that his character has changed a good bit. no longer is he a whiney-hiney terror, now he is helpful and friendly to all...but he's still a dragon. he decides to run away, so the others can get on with their voyage...but as he is running he encounters a fierce lion, who says to him "follow me." eustes at once follows and is led to a pool, which he longs to swim in. but the lion, aslan, says that he first must undress himself-and take off his dragonness...eustes tears at his scales and skin and begins to peel layer after layer off. each time, he thinks he just might have rid himself of the dragonness, but as he looks down, each time, he sees that he is still a dragon! he looks at aslan and says that he will always be a dragon, it seems, since he cannot shake himself free of it. aslan tells him to lie down, and as he does, aslan reaches a sharp claw down deep into eustes... it hurts like nothing has ever hurt before, but as aslan pulls away the dragonness, he knows that it's a pain that is worth it. after a few moments, eustes is freed from his dragonness and dropped into the pool by aslan to be cleansed completely... afterwards, aslan dresses the boy so he can go on his way.
it's a beautiful, beautiful picture of redemption that i have been thinking about all morning. Jesus has painfully freed us from our "dragonness" and cleansed us and dressed us anew in His righteousness!