One of the first stories my mother read to me as a child was The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Most of us know the classic tale: British children find magical land, children save magical land, children rule magical land until they stumble back into their own world and continue their lives as children, children return to magical land multiple times for adventures, etc. etc. In the end, all the main characters come together in the final book and find their way to Aslan’s Country (an allegory for heaven) and they live happily ever after.
Well all of them except one: Susan.
Being somewhat of a tomboy, 9-year-old me held preconceived contempt for Susan. Knowing that in the end it was “nylons and lipstick and invitations” that made her forget Narnia was definitely a strike against her. In my mind Susan represented the stuck up, popular, and too-cool-for-school crowd I butted heads with as an adolescent nerd. In short, she was my least favorite character.
Yet one has to wonder what happened to Susan? I speak hypothetically of course. These are fictional characters, but for a moment just roll with it. How could she possibly have become so preoccupied with boring things like grown up stuff when she had literally been to another dimension twice and met Aslan (Lewis’ allegory for Christ)?
Just consider for a moment what that would have been like. One day this world is all you know, and then one day it is revealed that there are in fact other worlds. And not only that, but you actually go to one of these worlds and live there for many years as royalty. Wouldn’t that change the way you see the world? Wouldn’t meeting Aslan make your own world that much smaller and yet more wondrous? And wouldn't your perspective on existence itself be fundamentally altered? It would be like Frodo coming back from Mordor and acting as if nothing happened. Ridiculous!
I was recently at a Bible study where someone posed the question “How do we continue to follow God on Monday like we do on Sunday? How do we avoid being influenced by the world?” My initial thought was “Boy, it’s hard to do. The world’s influence is strong.” Then it occurred to me: “I literally have a relationship with the Creator of the universe. How do I forget how awesome that is?” This led me to the realization that many of the things that distract me from my relationship with Christ are earthly grown-up things. Some of them more pressing like taxes and bills, yet others are equivalent to, if not more frivolous than, the aforementioned lipstick. I have come to the shocking and horrifying realization that as an adult, I am Susan.
As Christians we have been given an extraordinary gift, one as big as traveling to other worlds: Salvation through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross (Ephesians 2:8) and a personal relationship with Him (Hebrews 4:16). Yet we forget this reality and focus on what we think we want, even if it is frivolous and unsatisfying. It was said of Susan that, she “wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age” (The Last Battle, Chapter 12). Sound familiar?
Such was also true of the Israelites in the wilderness. Exodus tells how God delivered them from slavery, parted the Red Sea, and destroyed their enemies, yet the Israelites doubted and forgot God and the amazing things He did for them. They focused on frivolous temporal things like idols when the Creator of the universe was literally walking with them through the desert.
Oh how easy it is in our flesh to be Susan. To become so wrapped up in the lipsticks and invitations of this world that we forget that we were once royalty in another realm. After my recent realization, I do not relate as well to the other children in the Narnia stories as much as I thought I did. I find it amazing that they held to Narnia even in the midst of growing up and that they didn’t let the darkness of this world purge their souls of the memory of the light.
Now let’s go back to 9-year-old me. When I considered Susan then, pushing through my contempt of her, I hoped that somehow she found her way to Aslan’s Country. Having just experienced the death of the rest of her family in the final book I wondered if that was enough to shock her back into the memory of the land she forgot. It made me very sad to think that Susan never made her way to Aslan’s country as well.
I have heard rumors that C. S. Lewis considered writing a story about Susan, which leads me to think that perhaps her story was not over. Regardless of her canonical end, I believe there was always hope for Susan. Indeed, it was not wrong for her to enjoy things like lipstick and nylons. It was that she valued them more than Narnia. There is nothing wrong with being a grown-up, but letting being a grown up become more important than your relationship with Christ is the easiest way to lose your sense of wonder.
So let us have a bit of compassion on Susan. She is a fictional character, yet in a way she was the most realistic of them all. She was as flawed as are we. She forgot Aslan as we so often forget Christ. Let Susan’s story lead you to examine your own life and remember the wonders of your salvation. As Christians, let us never become so high in our own minds that we forget what we are: flawed and in need of a Savior. Yet let us also never become so obsessed with our own world that we forget who we are: royalty, children of the King.
