The Bare Foot on the Fire

In C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, there is a scene that has haunted readers for decades. Puddleglum the Marshwiggle and two children have journeyed deep underground to rescue a captive prince. But the Green Witch throws enchanted powder on a fire and begins strumming a mandolin, filling the room with a sweet, heavy fog. Slowly, she persuades them that there is no sun, no Overworld, no Aslan. Everything they trusted was just a dream.

One by one, they begin to believe her. The truth they had staked their lives on starts dissolving like mist.

Then Puddleglum does something unexpected. He stamps his bare foot into the fire. The pain cuts through the enchantment. With his burnt foot throbbing, he tells the Witch that even if everything he believes is make-believe, the made-up world sounds far better than her dark, cramped reality — and he intends to live as a Narnian.

Trust does not always mean certainty. Sometimes it means choosing to hold on when every voice around you whispers that what you believe is foolishness. The Apostle Paul knew this: "We walk by faith, not by sight."

There will be seasons when the fire burns low and the enchantment of doubt grows thick. Trust is the bare foot on the fire — the stubborn, painful choice to remember what is true when everything conspires to make you forget.