Some people whose prayers I research are lost to history. There’s not much written about their past and anecdotal stories about them are hard to find. Such is not the case with Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1889), who is famous for his wildly successful children’s story Alice in Wonderland. You know, the girl who falls into a rabbit hole and finds herself in Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll has been psychoanalyzed in every way possible. One aspect of his life that doesn’t receive much recognition is his deep and abiding faith. Historians tend to give his Christianity the short shrift. His extensive diary is full of devotional reflections and prayers. Lewis was a deacon in the Church of England, but stopped short of becoming a priest, perhaps because of a stammer in his speech, what Carroll called “his hesitation.” We get a glimpse of his faith in his comment about prayer, “I have had prayers answered most strangely so sometimes–but I think our Heavenly Father’s loving kindness has been even more evident in what he has refused me.”
Lewis kept copious notes in his diary of every letter he ever received or composed. People often wrote for his counsel, since he was an accomplished author and math professor at Christ Church College in Oxford, England. It’s estimated that he received or sent one hundred thousand letters in his lifetime. We’re not talking short, hurried notes but carefully crafted, handwritten letters. A friend wrote in 1897 to ask for is counsel about faith. Lewis answered by contrasting his worthlessness with Christ’s infinite worth and acknowledging his salvation as a gift of God’s grace, rather than any merit of his own. His closing words of a letter lead us to pray, “I owe it all to Him who loved me and died on the cross of Calvary.”