November 1, 2012
Where is God When Grief Consumes?
Joy escaped death once. The impossible miracle occurred when her cancer went into remission. For the next two years, Jack and Joy reveled in their young marriage. But in November of 1959, her cancer came back throughout her body. Joy was dying. On July 11, 1960 she succumbed to the disease and left with the words, “I am at peace with God.” Her death paralyzed Jack. He could barely pray and his writing stopped. The once great hero of the faith was shattered by overwhelming darkness and doubt. In his book A Grief Observed, he candidly wrote of his struggle.
"Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms.
But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?
. . . Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him."
Fantasy author Madeleine L’Engle wrote about A Grief Observed:
“I am grateful to Lewis for having the courage to yell, to doubt, to kick at God in angry violence. This is a part of a healthy grief which is not often encouraged. It is helpful indeed that C. S. Lewis, who has been such a successful apologist for Christianity, should have the courage to admit doubt about what he has so superbly proclaimed. It gives us permission to admit our own doubts, our own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are part of the soul’s growth.”
I am thankful for the weight of C.S. Lewis’ works that encourage and challenge me in my faith as a Christ follower. But A Grief Observed reminds me, like no other book I know, about the fragility of life, our tightrope of faith and the devastation of death. This was Jack’s Gethsemane. May we find an anchor when we enter our Gethsemanes.
How has grief drawn you closer to the heart of God?
A Grief Observed (1961)
This short book was written shortly after C.S. Lewis lost the love of his life, Joy, to cancer. For weeks after his wife’s death, Lewis penned about his pain, doubt and struggle with God in various notebooks in his home. Those notes were collected to create the book. Joy’s death shook everything Lewis believed and published up to that point. His conclusion to the pain? “Bereavement is a universal and integral part of the experience of love.” The raw, transparent nature of A Grief Observed makes it his most poignant and powerful work.
Interesting Fact: Lewis wrote the book under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk because of the intimate and personal nature of the material.
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Mark Grace
A work of immense depth and almost super human courage, this book. I read it for the first time when I was 22 and it was almost too much to bear. In an interesting sort of way, however, reading Lewis' book prepared me to confront my own unbearable losses without having to lose my faith. Thanks for reviewing it, Shawn.
6 months ago · ( 0 ) Like or Care
About the Author
Shawn Small
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As the new century was unfolding, Shawn Small began to question where his life was going. He had been working 10 years as a youth minister, survived three deadly car accidents, and was currently employed in a spiritually and emotionally unhealthy environment. Aside from his spiritual faith, wife Cheryl and their three children, what did he love most? The answer was simple: traveling and stories!
At age 23, Shawn had taken his first out-of-the-country trip where he explored ancient ruins, sipped tea with desert Bedouins, and visited the catacombs beneath the sprawling city of Rome. Hooked on traveling, Shawn began to lead groups of young people to visit indigenous tribes in the Guatemalan mountains, hike through Alaskan rainforests to hidden glacier lakes, and explore ancient Celtic passage tombs in Ireland.
In his need for change and willingness to take a superb leap of faith, Shawn unveiled Wonder Voyage in 2000, a unique non-profit organization dedicated to leading seekers into the ancient and sacred sacrament of pilgrimage. Since then, Wonder Voyage has led thousands of pilgrims to over forty countries and continues to expand into new territories. Shawn later established Boundless Expeditions, a travel company focusing on schools, colleges, corporations or lone travelers—those who look at adventure travel as a chance to change the world.
And with each new travel adventure, Shawn heard and learned glorious tales from the indigenous people he visited.
Although he continues to lead several trips and retreats a year, Shawn considers himself first and foremost a storyteller—before audiences and in print. In 2008, Providence House Publishers released his first book, The Via Crucis, winner of the bronze medal in the Inspirational/Spiritual category at the thirteenth annual Independent Publisher Book Awards. His second book in the series, The Via Advent, was released in 2010, and it was awarded the silver medal in the Inspirational/Spiritual category at the fifteenth annual Independent Publisher Book Awards. He just finished an independent documentary filmed in South Sudan.
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