A Grief Observed

C.S. Lewis married when he was older to a woman named Joy. Joy got cancer and died just some years after they were married. Lewis, being a writer, wrote down his thoughts after she died in a journal. He turned that journal in a book called, “A Grief Observed.” The first few pages are somewhat disturbing. Look at this quote from early in the journal, “Where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms... When you are so happy then you are tempted to feel God’s claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be 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.... What can this mean? Why is God so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?” Toward the end of the book things become better, somewhat. Listen to this quote: “When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question (off). Like, ‘Peace child; you don’t understand.’”