Choices, Narnia and Bleak House

Bleak House. A novel by Charles Dickens. Wikipedia calls it "Widely held to be one of Dickens' finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon." True, there were tons of characters in the 2005 adaption we watched last week. Funny ones, weird ones, scary ones and a couple just plain... creepy ones. All very Dickens-ish The movie was well made, fast-paced, well written and acted, and worth watching all 8 hours.

During our 3 night viewing our family discussed the moral of the story. We came to the conclusion that it was a story of choices. The whole story comes to be because a women makes a wrong choice, a morally wrong choice. Because of that choice, our heroine is born. So if she had made the right choice we would have no story, right? So was it actually the right choice? We'd have no story if not, and what about all the people our heroine helped and blessed in her life??Well of course not, but the question comes.... What if???

This reminds me of one of my absolute favorite passages in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia books. Price Caspin Chapter 10:

"You mean" said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right-somehow? But how? Please Aslan! Am I not to know?"

"To know what would have happened, child? said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."

"Oh dear," said Lucy.

"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan...

And what about the many people our heroine helped?? Narnia wisdom comes in again, this time from The Horse and His Boy Chapter 14:

"Child," said Aslan, "I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own."

What choices we make we can not change, we make them in a split second, and the wheels are set in motion. Whether good or bad they are made and can not be changed. How ever small, they might have much significance. Will anyone's life be changed by me posting this today? I should think not... but you never know. Is it right? Wrong? Somewhere in between? It's confusing, and frustrating, but what is certain is that God gave us free will, and the only thing one knows they can do right is to listen to the Holy Spirit and try to do God's will in everything...