A Grief Observed

It is raining here - an incredible storm. And the power just went out. :-) A good time to reflect, read, and write...

A couple years ago, I picked up A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. As an author that I thoroughly enjoyed, and easily (or maybe not, since there are rivals) my favorite, I was excited to get into it. I found myself a little surprised…I was not able to identify with his struggle over the death of his wife at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised – but it seemed like he was talking about an aspect of God that I hadn’t met. There were some good conclusions at the end, but I still felt like I wouldn’t be able to understand for a very long time what this man was dealing with.

Then I opened the pages of it again this week. It was like a balm on my aching heart! This time I felt like there was someone who understood what I’m going through. I know having someone you love die must be different than this, but an aspect of it is just so similar…especially dealing with grief at such a deep level. It brings us all to the same place in wrestling with Who our God is. Here is some of what he wrote that was significant to me. First, the cruelty we sense in what is really God's mercy:

“The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed – might grow tired of his vile sport -- might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.
“What do people mean when they say ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never been to a dentist?”

And this part is so comforting to me. On how God teaches us to want HIM…not just the things He takes from us (in Lewis’ case, his wife “H”). And thoughts on how He sees and loves, even when we can’t understand His silence.

“Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there's any road to H. it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can't be used as a road. If you're approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you're not really approaching Him at all. That's what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions ‘on the further shore’; not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End.

“Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learned to love You so much that I don't care whether I meet her or not? Consider, Lord, how it looks to us. What would anyone think of me if I said to the boys, ‘no toffee now. But when you've grown up and don't really want toffee you shall have as much of it as you choose’?
If I knew that being eternally divided from H. and eternally forgotten by her would add greater joy and splendor to her being, of course I'd say, ‘Fire ahead.’ Just as if, on earth, I could have cured her cancer by never seeing her again, I'd have arranged never to see her again. I'd have had to. Any decent person would. But that's quite different. That's not a situation I'm in.

“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. Like, ‘peace, child; you don't understand.’

“Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask -- half our great theological and metaphysical problems -- are like that.
(…)
“His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another, nor from Him. We could almost say He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees.”

I am so thankful for Lewis' grieving, and for his transparency and giftedness in expressing it. Truly our God does "[comfort] us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." I praise Him for that.

A miracle

“A ‘no’ answer has purged sin from my life. It has strengthened my commitment to Him, forced me to depend on grace, bound me with other believers, produced discernment, fostered sensitivity, disciplined my mind, taught me to spend my time wisely, and widened my world beyond what I would have ever dreamed had I never had that accident in 1967.

My affliction has stretched my hope, made me know Christ better, helped me long for truth, led me to repentance of sin, goaded me to give thanks in times of sorrow, increased my faith, and strengthened my character.

Being in this wheelchair has meant knowing Him better and feeling His pleasure every day. If that doesn’t qualify as a miracle in your book, then may I say in all kindness, I prefer my book to yours.”

- Joni Eareckson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty, 2010

"He said to them, 'it is not for you to know times and seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority'." -- Acts 1:7

Oh! What a sea of encouragement...

“Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you” I Peter 5:7

It is a happy way of soothing sorrow when we can feel ‘He careth for me’. Christian! Do not dishonour your religion by always wearing a brow of care; come, cast your burden upon your Lord. You are staggering beneath a weight which your Father would not feel. What seems to you a crushing burden, would be to Him but as the small dust of the balance. Nothing is so sweet as to

‘Lie passive in God’s hands, and know no will but His.’

O child of suffering, be thou patient; God has not passed thee over in His providence. He who is the feeder of sparrows, will also furnish you with what you need. Sit not down in despair; hope on, hope ever. Take up the arms of faith against a sea of trouble and your opposition shall yet end your distresses. There is One who careth for you. His eye is fixed on you. His heart beats with pity for your woe, and his hand omnipotent shall yet bring you the needed help. The darkest cloud shall scatter itself in showers of mercy. The blackest gloom shall give place to the morning. He, if thou art one of His family, will bind up thy wounds, and heal thy broken heart. Doubt not His grace because of thy tribulation, but believe that He loveth thee as much in seasons of trouble as in times of happiness. What a serene and quiet life might you lead if you would leave providing to the God of providence! With a little oil in the cruse, and a handful of meal in the barrel, Elijah outlived the famine, and you will do the same.


If God cares for you, why need you care too? Can you trust Him for your soul, and not for your body? He has never refused to bear your burdens, He has never fainted under their weight. Come, then, soul! Have done with fretful care, and leave all thy concerns in the hand of a gracious God.

- Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

John Piper on Faith and Suffering

The great chapter on faith in the Bible is Hebrews 11. It begins, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." What is often overlooked in this chapter, though, is the final eight verses where we get the balanced picture of faith as that which lays hold on God for rescue from suffering, and as that which lays hold on God for peace and hope in suffering. Verse 33: "By faith they conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection."

Now if we stopped reading here our conception of how the quality of faith manifests itself would be very distorted, because here it sounds as if faith always wins in this life. But here a shift occurs and we find that faith is also the power to lose our life: "By faith . . . others were tortured, not accepting release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection; others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheep skins, in goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy) wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground . . . And all these gained approval through their faith."

The glory of God is manifested when he heals and when he gives a sweet spirit of hope and peace to the person that he does not heal, for that, too, is a miracle of grace! O, that we might be a people among whom God is often healing our sicknesses, but is always causing us to be full of joy and peace while our sicknesses remain. If we are a humble and childlike people who cry out to God in our need and trust in his promises, the Holy Spirit will help us and God will bless our church with every possible blessing. He will, as the text says, work everything together for our good.

(URL: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/christ-and-cancer#/listen/full)

I used to be a big dreamer. In my teen years I was so passionate and determined, and I knew what I wanted: to be a world-changer. In my own words back then, I didn't want to just be a scratch on the surface of time -- I wanted to be a chasm. I didn't know how this would come about or what this would look like, but I was pretty sure I was going to be a Katharina Von Bora and marry a Martin Luther...or something like that.

Reflecting on those girl-hood hopes brings some irony when I look at where I am right now. Today found me on the constant verge of a panic attack just chasing around two toddlers, and that is typical for me these days...not just that, I'm praising God that I'm doing well enough to do that much! And so I realize that those dreams are just as good now as then, but my perception of what that girl should look like has changed. Because right now, incapable and needy and lost little me fills that role just as much as what I had always dreamed I should. Not because of me, but because of who I am in God. And it sure doesn't look like anything to aspire to. God works His greatest miracles in the most unexpected places. It is so true that God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

When Gollum Bit His Finger Off
by Douglas Wilson

Believers often find themselves up against it. The challenge might be medical, familial, financial, educational, or personal. We tend to think in terms of pressure or stress, and when it gets really bad, trouble. The old Puritans thought in terms of affliction, as well as in terms of God's antidote to affliction, which is contentment. Samuel Rutherford once said that affliction was like a wine cellar. When I am afflicted, he said, I look for God's choicest wines.

Contentment is not something that is suspended in a timeless place, but is rather what God is teaching us while we wait for our deliverance. And we are supposed to be looking for that deliverance in such a way as gives us rest in the present. There is a faithless way of looking for deliverance that exacerbates the present troubles, and there is a way of looking for future deliverance that brings a present deliverance. We are called to the latter.

There are two things to remember as you are carrying the weight of an affliction. The first is the "space" of the deliverance, and the other is the "time" of the deliverance. Let us consider the second of these first.

It was a proverb among the descendants of Abraham that "on the mount of the Lord it will be provided." This came from God's provision of a ram for Abraham at the last minute, to be substituted for Isaac. As He tells the stories of our lives, we need to come to grips with the fact that God loves cliffhangers. The application that we should draw from this is that we should love cliffhangers too -- even though we are the ones hanging from the cliff.

With regard to the "space" of the trial, a weighty difficulty has mass, it takes up room. It is something you have to carry. But as you carry it (to be distinguished from collapsing under it), you grow stronger. Afflictions are God's weight room, and He can seem sometimes like a particularly hard trainer. When you are benching more than you thought you volunteered for, and way more than what you thought was a good idea, you need to trust Him. He knows more about this than we do.

It may seem odd to quote an unbeliever at this point, but I only do so to provide an analogy. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that when a mind expands to accommodate a new thought, it can never afterward resume its old shape. Once you have carried that weight, you have carried that weight and can do so again -- with a lot less commotion in your soul this next time. When your faith has grown to accommodate the task of carrying the weight of your 2010 trials, you should find yourself (in 2014) carrying things that you would have at one time declared an impossibility.

The deliverance is coming, and we should all long for it. But there are two deliverances -- one is the natural "last chapter" to that particular story. But the other deliverance revolves around what is happening in the story. Frodo was delivered when Gollum bit his finger off, but he was also delivered when he first agreed to take the ring. This last deliverance is much harder to see, but seeing it makes all the difference.

(URL here: http://www.dougwils.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8493:when-gollum-bit-his-finger-off&catid=85:dealing-with-sin)