In C.S. Lewis’s, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, there is a poignant scene where a young boy named Eustace, has discovered the treasury of a dragon. The story portrays him as selfish, greedy, and wholly unlikeable. And so he falls asleep on his new treasure with dreams of “greedy, dragonish thoughts,” and awakens to discover he is no longer a boy, but a dragon. The very picture of his innerworkings. The agony is compounded by the gold bracelet he put on as a boy, that now is excruciatingly tight. Devastation and despair settle in. He is now cut off, isolated and alone…too big to regain passage on the boat he came on. He begins to “weep large, hot dragon tears.” But then. Then he encounters Aslan.
Then the lion said – but I don’t know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
I want to expose my life in all of it’s messes and glory, in hopes it causes others to laugh, cry, share and grow.
And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off?
I want this to be a community that joins the conversation about what womanhood looks like in a society of perfect instagram accounts, and to do lists taller than we are. I want the layers to fall away. To expose the tender skin under our hard scales. And man, can it be painful. This exfoliation of our life. But from my experience, the pain pales in comparison to what shines underneath.
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I, as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.
I’m not looking to tear down. I want to be candid, vulnerable, sometimes raw. But not just for the sake or shock of it. I desperately want to give hope, to show the grace of God, to lift others up. And I feel like I might have some practical tips, help and fun to offer as we move along this path together.
To be Made Frank is to be exposed. It’s removing the scales one by one, layer by layer until what is left is the soft core. Genuine and beautiful.
