But a cold winter does us another favor, if we will let it. A cold winter is a reality check. Here in the West, home of central air, fast food, and grocery stores proffering more choices than we can comprehend, suffering and discomfort of any kind are difficult to come by. If we try hard enough, we can manage to avoid it completely. Unless, of course, we are forced to confront it via weather.

Adversity is good for us, we know this. We expect it in academics and athletics; we should welcome it in weather. A good cold winter, in all its discomfort, reminds us of our frailty and, perhaps, that we are guests on this planet, subject to authority and control far beyond our reach.

The delightful characters of Lewis’s Narnia have to face this fact every blessed day, and by the time Lucy stumbles into their frosty world, they have been facing it for one hundred years. Whether we are reading the book or watching the film, we feel their pain: winter, ice and snow with no chance of Christmas.

Director Andrew Adamson creates this world beautifully in his cinematic production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Evergreen trees are enshrouded with snow that lies thick and silent, and Tumnus’s hooves break that wooded silence with a familiar and gentle crunch. An invitation to tea is something we would all warm to; the crackling fire replete with visions of dancing fauns is the perfect response in a Narnian winter landscape.

It is the winter’s absoluteness that makes spring’s return so delightful. The budding green and blooming flowers herald the appearance of Lewis’s magic: water begins to run under the ice, and soon enough nyads and dryads appear in the form of drifting flower petals and water fountains.

The magic accelerates: centaurs charge down hillsides, shocking us with their grace, power and, somehow, familiarity: they look precisely as we imagined they would and yet they amaze us. Peter leads an army of them, with fauns, giants and leopards besides. They charge against ogres, trolls and giants of the unpleasant variety, while overhead griffins screech and soar, fighting for the good guys. The battle and the season work as reversible metaphors: spring’s answer to winter is good’s answer to evil, and the relief and rightness of it all is palpable.

But Lewis and Adamson favor us, too, with that other confrontation: the suffering that comes from facing one’s weakness and failure. Tumnus’s confession to Lucy is one of heart-rending contrition. Cowering on the floor of his home, the fire gone out and the room gone cold, Tumnus agonizes over what he has done in luring Lucy toward likely death at the hands of the White Witch.

My favorite scene is a confrontation of the absolute variety: apparent good facing absolute good. Peter, Susan and Lucy stand facing Aslan, this lion of whom they have heard so much, the one whose coming has melted the Witch’s winter. They seek him because they believe he will help them find their brother. They are drawn to him because they sense something beautiful and good in his very name. They know that Edmund’s disappearance is his own fault; they know that he is a traitor. They have not, at this point, considered themselves his keeper. Rather, they have been annoyed with him and worried, yes, but mostly are looking for him to save his life and to give him a good scolding.

And here Adamson draws from his child-actors a profound moment. One look at Aslan’s face, and the children are individually confronted, not with Edmund’s treason, but with their own. Aslan is interested in Edmund, to be sure, but he is also profoundly interested in his siblings, and this penetrating interest suddenly exposes all of their shame. The children are cold again, chilled to the marrow by their own failure to love. The right to justice dissolves in a deep need for mercy.

Happily for them, and for all of us, mercy runs in Aslan’s blood. The children’s mumbled apologies—a rare cinematic admission of fault—are, of course, accepted.

Yet it is this moment of contrition, just as much as Edmund’s, that makes Aslan’s sacrifice meaningful and essential. And it is this moment that makes the girls’ joy in Aslan’s resurrection that much more real.

We can’t truly know the joy of spring without first confronting winter. More importantly, we can’t know the joy of forgiveness until we have learned to say “I’m sorry.”