There is great value in reading fairy tales in a pandemic. There is freedom and joy to be found when we turn off the news, stop scrolling Facebook, and read. Above all, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Christ’s holy Word. And while you’re at it, take some time to read a good fairytale too. You won’t be disappointed.

While we are promised that God will always be with us, we are also told of the benefits that can come to us even in our pain.

The following is an excerpt from“Where Two or Three Are Gathered” edited by Scott Keith (1517 Publishing, 2019).

Ultimately it’s at the cross of Calvary, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the great Lion of Judah, that the stone table is broken, and everything sad does indeed finally come untrue.

Each of these little epiphanies in Middle-earth are like the star the magi saw arise in the sky, a light that reflects and points to Jesus who is the Light of the world.

Consolation is the breath of life filling our lungs, hearts, and minds with the fresh, incorruptible air of the new creation.

God is the God of failures, for He became one for you. There is no failure of ours that is bigger than Jesus’ cross, no sin of ours that can overshadow the cross.

Mordor’s bleak existence and the successful salvific mission of Frodo and Samwise is what makes Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings such a psychologically enjoyable epic.

Jesus is the great Houdini of the grave for us. And through His death, He gives us the Great Escape from death that leads to the great joy of the Resurrection.

The absence of a feeling is not the absence of Christ, but as emotional, rational, and spiritual beings, we cannot say that the presence of Christ necessitates the absence of emotion.

Recovery helps us see beauty in the ordinary; the miracle and wonder of creation in the oak leaf or the evergreen needle.

What do the events of good stories, like The Lord of the Rings teach us about the rise and fall of civilizations in our own world?