The Magician's Nephew  is the most autobiographical book the C.S. Lewis ever wrote, and, while watching a documentary on the great writer yesterday afternoon, my skin prickled at a truth I've never heard stated in quite the same way. It gave me tears, and then it gave me peace.

The mother of the little boy (Digory) in the story is dying of Cancer, a scenario Lewis knew only too well. In case you don't know, C.S. Lewis was a born again Christian, having strayed toward atheism in adulthood when he began to question his spiritual upbringing. After years of debate, his logic led him back, and he was a devout Christian until his death in 1963. The Chronicles of Narnia are a Christian allegory.

Anyway, The Magician's Nephew  was the sixth of the seven chronicles published, though it is the first chronologically. It is in The Magician's Nephew  that the world of Narnia is created. Digory asks Aslan, The Creator, the most powerful and gracious, to save his mother. Aslan cries. Digory concludes with wonder that Aslan loves his mother even more than he does.

I pleaded nightly in my prayers for over two years asking God to save Mom and make the disease go away. In Sunday School, my teacher taught me that God hears every prayer, but that sometimes, he just says, "No." I know that He wept at her pain, and loving her even more than I did, he wanted her to know the splendor of Heaven.