Explanation

“I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

Orual, the main character of my favorite book, Till We Have Faces, articulates this. In the book C. S. Lewis narrates her life as it leads up to the point at which she is finally able to understand that God isn’t a cruel judge, rather a lover leading us to the place in which we can understand him. In a similar but true story, God spoke through Hosea to say this about Israel.

“I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her … and in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Master.’”

Though this was written about that nation, it applies to me and Orual. She was on the run from God but he turned her around until she could say that he was her husband, till she had a face. It has taken a lot to give me a face too and even now I only “see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” This blog is about face growing—the process of being humbled and seeking to meet God face to face.