The Shadowlands

My wife, Heather, spent the day with "Grams" and said her goodbyes to her mom. She read the last two chapters of The Last Battle from The Chronicles of Narnia. The book ends with Peter, Edmund and Lucy meeting Aslan as they enter the Shadowlands. They were experiencing things too delightful for words.
"You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be," [said Aslan.]

Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often."

"No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you guessed?"

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

"Your father and mother and all of you are--as you used to call it in the Shadowlands--dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
Grams is now in the Shadowlands beginning the Great Story, face-to-face with Christ her Savior. It was amazing to see her take her last breath--not a struggle, but more like something wonderful took her breath away. I wonder what she is seeing and experiencing and can't wait to meet with her again.

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