Losing and Gaining

I had a special dentist appointment this afternoon.  A few times a year I undergo a gum cleaning that consists of about 4 Asian hygienists climbing into my mouth and using a small pick that shoots water and medicine in between my teeth and gum lines.  It sounds excruciating but it's not that bad; it's just a little humiliating.

One of my biggest fears is that my teeth will rot out of my mouth.  If you knew the genetics I inherited, you would be praying for me right now.  Plus, I'm from the south.  I'm dentally disadvantaged anyway you look at it.  All the good genes went to my brother, The Rat.

And with no segue:

I'm trying to meditate on Easter this week.  In spiritual terms, my mind tends to gravitate toward GOD the FATHER and the Holy Spirit.  Every now and then a voice inside my head clears its throat and says, "Um...Jesus."  It's not like I disregard Him or anything.  I can't explain it.

At the end of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about finding our true selves only in Christ.  I love this part in particular:

"Give up yourself and you will find your real self.  Lose your life and you will save it.  Submit to death, the death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and the death of your whole body in the end:  Submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life.

"Keep back nothing.  Nothing that you have not given away will really ever be yours.  Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.  Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay.  But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

There are times that I feel like saying "Yes!  Amen to that!" and there are times that I know I'll go the rest of my life and never fully understand what he's saying.  But slowly I'm learning that I will only become myself, my glorious renewed self, if I lay it all down.

And none of us would ever have a shot at our new selves if Easter hadn't happened.