"Did you ever think, when you were a child, what fun it would be if your toys could come to life? Well suppose you could really have brought them to life. Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man...And suppose the tin soldier did not like it...all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt."
-from: "The Obstinate Toy Soldiers" page 179

CS Lewis's imagery of the obstinate toy soldiers is very reminiscent of the tale of Pinocchio and Geppetto. Pinocchio wants to become a real boy, but must first put in to practice the virtue of honesty. With human beings, saved or unsaved, we begin as empty as Pinocchio, as breakable and and small as little tin soldiers. CS Lewis also accurately pointed out that no transformation is welcomed or anticipated with excitement by human beings undergoing the process of metamorphosis. Furthermore, the difficulty of the metamorphosis so often attributed with receiving the Holy Spirit and becoming children of God is a battle that often starts with failure and disappointment. Much like Pinocchio grew a long nose when he lied, and a tin soldier might look with disgust on the Maker that tries to repair him, so do we human beings recoil initially when the hand of God intervenes on our behalf.

Many aspects of Christianity, detailed in the ten commandments and in other places in Scripture, are, as Mrs. Meyers so aptly put, "rather inconvenient." We are content to remain set in our own routines, comfortable with the peccadillos that we convince ourselves are surely not hurting anyone or ourselves. But the reality is, sin is sin, brokenness is brokenness. Of course a tin soldier would not want to undergo the change from tin to flesh, just as a hollow man is reluctant to receive the love of God.

In my own personal experience, I always find myself going back to the issue of the battle between my rational brain and my eating disorder, very irrational brain. I embody the human getting comfortable in the new skin and in the light of God, while at the same time my spirit embodies the irritation of the tin soldier who feels the tin being "spoilt" by an outside force that it can't control. In my younger days, I always imagined of course how amazing it would be to watch my stuffed animals come to life, and in fact I would sometimes put blankets over my bear collection when I went to kindergarten in case they felt like sleeping while I was away. If only I could go back and make those same precautionary measures for myself and for my soul, I would give this present, 17-year-old Melanie the "blanket" of assurance that the process of coming alive in Christ is something beautiful, although it might be excrutiatingly painful. This quote is something that cut me to my core, because it is the exact quote that could describe the struggle this has been, and will continue to be: finding God and letting the metamorphosis occur.