In the C.S. Lewis novel Till We Have Faces, the main character, Orual, has taken mental notes throughout her life, carefully building what she refers to as her “case” against the gods. Choosing finally to put this case formally in writing, she meticulously describes each instance where she has been wronged. It is only after Orual has finished writing that she soberly recognizes her great mistake. With a sobering blow of recognition, she sees the importance of uttering the speech at the center of one’s soul, for to have heard herself making the complaint was to be answered. She then profoundly observes that the gods used her own pen to probe the wounds. With sharpened insight Orual explains, “Till the words can be dug out of us, why should [the gods] hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face until we have faces?”(1)
Never since has a book cut open my heart and laid it before me so plainly. It was simultaneously the moment I realized how distant I had become from God and the sudden suspicion: What if God had been near all along? I had spent a lifetime subconsciously compiling my case against this God. Through more turbulent years en route to faith and belief in Christ, I stood armed with my diary of questions, taking more a stance of interrogator than glad follower. Some of my questions were milder interrogations than others; in fact, some even embodied the possibility of exoneration. But the telling detail in this perspective was that I saw myself as the one holding the judge’s gavel, while God was the one on trial.