As a child I witnessed salt poured on a slug. Salt is often used in gardens to exterminate the pests. The small creature did the only thing it could do under such conditions, it melted.

All that remained was a grisly puddle of sludge.

The imagery came to mind this weekend as I considered the “squirm” of my flesh and contemplated its death — over and over again.

It must die. I want it to die… and yet in the moment it is so painful.

C. S. Lewis wrote about man’s struggle with our fallen state in his fictional tale, The Great Divorce, 1945. What sounds like a treatise on marriage is in fact one soul’s journey from hell to heaven with rich imagery and relatable vignettes between multiple characters and heavenly helpers.

Toward the end of the story, our protagonist is struggling with a small creature he’s befriended long ago. Lust.

An angel repeatedly asks our protagonist if he may kill the “lizard”. He tries to evade the necessary operation through all manner of verbal gymnastics until eventually relenting… this scene makes me cry.

Every. Single. Time.

The man is remade. The lizard is killed. What had been error is transformed and freed to be what it was always meant to be.

Other characters, “ghosts”, throughout the story struggle with varying degrees of too little love, too little genuine affection for others… the angel corrects our observer’s conclusion. The ghosts abilities were not too much but the opposite – weak, self-interested, and misguided.

Oh, the rub….

Who doesn’t struggle with the flesh? No one. But when we yield and seek release, begging for help from His hand, the dynamos of God becomes holy salt liquifying our “slugs”.

Amy Carmichael, (1867—1951), an Irish Christian who founded a mission orphanage in India, addresses the “ifs” of our frail love vs. His calvary love in the small title above, If, published by CLC Publications 2024.

And the beautiful thing is, even as we squirm, not understanding what freedom and rebirth awaits us, He is patiently waiting to refine.

“For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”

NKJV Psalm 103:14