Last month, a friend and I looked up what our names meant. She was devastated to find out that one of the meanings to her name meant "unlucky." This was particularly frustrating since she had had a rough semester where thing after thing went wrong...
I can't remember how we got to even talking about the meanings of names but I recently had a huge realization about my own name.
When I was younger, someone told me that my name meant "resurrection" or "one who shall rise again." I basically thought these were extremely lame name meanings. To me, "resurrection" was only ever to be associated with Easter and Jesus.
Hey, I'm being honest.
When Mallory and I looked up our names, wherever we were looking said that my name was akin to the name "Eustace." I immediately thought, "That sucks. That's the name of the most annoying kid in the entire Narnia series..."
(somehow, I completely evaded the fact that "stace" was in both our names.)
My aforementioned blog friend and I have in the past discussed wanting to be Lucy. Or Peter. Or Susan. Maybe even Edmund if you can get past The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. But NEVER Eustace. Who is that kid, anyways? Right?
Tonight it came to me. I am Eustace.
Not only do we share the same name origin, but I am very often the same bratty, stubborn, and unlikable cousin of the Pevensie children.
But you know what is so great about Eustace? In Chapter Seven, Eustace is described as, "the restored Eustace."
And I love that.
If you don't know the story, Eustace is a selfish boy and ends up being turned into a dragon. Eventually, a lion (Aslan) comes along and shows Eustace a pool where he (still as a dragon) can wash. But first, his layers must come off. Eustace tries on his own three times to take the scales off, but to no avail. Aslan had to intervene.
Eustace says in the story, "The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away...It smarted like anything but only for a moment."
Eustace then sees that he is once again a boy and no longer a dragon.
I have two favorite parts of this story:
1) Eustace recognizes that the layers must come off in order to be cleansed in the pool and
2) it is Aslan who enables the layers to be discarded
I have a lot to learn.
But for now, the moral of my blog (because I feel like this is necessary for closing) boils down to significance. Not to say I'm "whoohoo" to be Eustace. But you know what? It's nice to share something with a character. It is definitely unfortunate to realize the common ground is much in part to the poor qualities, but nevertheless, humbling. And I need all that I can get. The End.
