Hanging Narnia in my hallway.

Someone told me the other day, "Melissa, you're blog is so funny. But if you really want people to read it and take you seriously you're going about it all wrong."

Hmmm. I'm not sure how to take that.

Mainly because what I write is real. And it's me. When I spend and entire post salivating over Julio's Chips. I am really salivating. When I write about my struggles to exit an inflated, bouncey, torture chamber. I was really stuck. And when I do my "Last Time I Talked to My Mother" posts...people, it don't get no more real than that.

Just like everyone I have a softer side. An intimate side. A silly, girly side. They may not be as accessible as my fun side. My loud side. My quite boisterous and rip-roaring side. But they are there nonetheless. Just ask the Attorney General.

But I would hope - above all else, above anything that you could ever say about me - that my absolute love and devotion to the Lord is a side you see most often. It probably isn't.
I'm human.

Which leads me to today's post. Now, for the record, let me state this. I AM NOT posting this today due to the aforementioned comment. I don't really give in that easily. Just ask the Attorney General. But I felt it pertinent to share that comment considering what I wanted to share with you today was, well, rather personal.

No one laugh.

Here goes.

I love lions. I mean, I really really love lions. I have loved them my whole life, but by the time I became an adult I was wild about them. I love to look at pictures of them, read about them, watch the National Geographic channel on them, you name it. It may sound silly, but it's true. I'm fascinated with them.

It's something about the look in their eyes. The beauty of their build. They're beautiful and passionate, dominant and powerful. They're fierce. And I feel both terrified and safe all at once.

My sweet husband knows my love for them and yet has never really ever bought me anything with a lion on it. I'm not sure if you have noticed but a house full of "lion pieces" does not a Southern Living spread make. I assure you when you walk in my house you would have no idea my love for this animal. Until now...

For Mother's Day the Attorney General gave me this. Because he's good.

I love it. I absolutely love it. I love it more than the wicker furniture he bought me last year or the...oh, wait. It's only my 2nd Mother's Day. But so far the man is on a roll.

He hung it the very day he gave it to me. Which I have to say, is a gift all on it's own. Normally a Bill has to pass through the House and Senate before I can get anything hung around here. But not that day. He followed me all around the house until I had chosen the perfect spot. Know where it ended up?

In the hallway just outside my bedroom door. If, at any moment, I become afraid, all I have to do is sit up in my bed and look into my hallway. And He is who I see.

Below the picture it says this:

Majesty

"They will follow the Lord; He will roar like a lion. When He roars, His children will come trembling from the West."

Hosea 11:10 (NIV)

Oh, my! Don't you love it? I do. Just the very thought. That picture is sometimes the last thing I see at night as I crawl into my bed. It's one of the most precious gifts I've ever received.

So now that you have knowledge of my secret love...guess what movie I saw this weekend? Yep, you guessed it. A little independent film that not many people know about called, "Prince Caspian."

I cried. Openly. And loudly. I really did. And all the AG can do is just sit there and let me do it. It can't be explained my love for all things Aslan. It's just that I suppose that is how I see God. Beautiful and passionate, dominant and powerful. I guess I feel both terrified and safe, all at once. What they have created on screen is what I have seen in my mind since I was a child. They got it perfectly right.

So you have to know how much I loved it when Aslan and Lucy are together...

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."

"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

That was my favorite line in the entire movie. Because I got it. I understood it. Every year I have spent serving Him, when it's been good and when it's been horrible, I have come to find Him bigger and bigger and bigger. And I have come to find myself less and less and less.

Every year I've grown I've found Him to be more just and faithful, more determined and ferocious. More awesome and forgiving. More precious and patient.

Every year I grow I find Him bigger.