The Wound That Made Him Human Again

In C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the boy Eustace Scrubb falls asleep on a dragon's hoard and wakes to discover he has become a dragon himself. His greed has turned him into the thing he hoarded. Miserable and isolated, Eustace tries desperately to heal himself. He scratches at the dragon skin, peeling it away layer after layer — but each time, another layer of scales appears underneath.

Then Aslan comes.

"You will have to let me undress you," the great Lion says. And his claws cut far deeper than Eustace's own scratching ever could. The pain is real. But when Aslan tears the dragon skin away and plunges Eustace into a pool of clear water, the boy emerges — himself again. Tender-skinned, vulnerable, but human.

Lewis understood something about healing that we often resist: we cannot peel away our own scales. We scratch at the surface of our addictions, our bitterness, our grief. We try another self-help book, another resolution, another fresh start. And each time, we find more scales underneath.

True healing requires a hand stronger and kinder than our own. The prophet Jeremiah cried out, "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed" (Jeremiah 17:14), because he knew healing is not a project we manage — it is a grace we receive.

The Healer's touch may go deeper than we expected. But what He uncovers is the person we were always meant to be.