A Grief Observed: The Ongoing Impact of C.S. Lewis

Words by Rebecca Greenfield

There I was again, at the bedside of yet another close family member dying. How could we be here again? Within a little over a year and a half, we had lost half of our small family. This one was my dear uncle, only 67, so unexpected. A massive stroke stealing him from us too prematurely—it all felt so senseless. No deaths are desired. None feel good or timely, but this one fell in the middle of a torrent of other significant calamities. The timing felt harsh. This death left me with many questions and with many moments of wrestling with God.

I had been in this place years ago. I referred to it as my “faith crisis.” Who was this God? Could not the Creator of Heaven and Earth surely spare such tragedy, hardship, and suffering? I spent a solid two to three years shelving Christianity in search of truth. It was in those years of wandering that God used C.S. Lewis as a personal theologian to help my scarred heart navigate the minefield of divinity dilemmas. And so here I was again, in one of the darkest seasons of my life—a season filled with loss upon loss upon loss—revisiting the words of C.S. Lewis to help me understand the mysteries of our great God.

Clive Staples Lewis, who preferred to go by the name “Jack” and pen name C.S. Lewis, was born November 29, 1898 in Belfast, Ireland and only lived to age 64. He worked as an English literary scholar at Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Growing up, Lewis’ father owned and read about every book imaginable, almost producing a miniature library in their own home. Lewis, early on, embodied this same love of reading which not only aided in his well-rounded knowledge, but fostered in him a rigorous philosophical candor. He was a staunch atheist for many years, asserting that all religions were some deviations of a myth. But his love of literature and intellectual discourses led him to become part of an informal Oxford literary group called the Inklings. It was comprised of 12-20 literary pundits, of which included Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Around age 32, much to the influence of Tolkien, Lewis committed his life to Christ which permeated his work thereafter, profoundly impacting Christians of his era. Throughout World War II, he would present radio broadcasts discussing matters of the Christian faith, a voice of help and hope during wartimes. He is famous for works such as The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed, Space Trilogy, Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, plus several other masterpieces.

Though Lewis died at a relatively young age, his work continues to be a prominent source of rich insight in the Christian tradition, keeping him very much alive. Not only was he a literary scholar, but he was also a biblical scholar. It was not so much that he had mastery over Greek, Hebrew, or expository preaching, but rather Lewis had a unique ability (and intelligence) to philosophically wrestle through the deep matters of God. Lewis was a Biblical intellect, especially skilled at reasoning through scriptural tensions and debating atheistic arguments. Through reason, metaphors, extrapolation, logical deductions, and observations of the human condition, Lewis could quickly bring clarity to theological quandaries. Additionally, Lewis’ metaphorical ingenuity made him highly creative at interposing God’s truths into allegorical literary worlds. The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the best displays of this, as he created an allegorical rendering of the justice, salvation, and triumphant reign of Christ through an imaginative “other” world. Spending time in a work of C.S. Lewis is a mental exercise as much as a transformative heart experience.

As I processed yet another death in our small family, I found myself pressing into these giftings of Lewis to help me unpack the mystery of grief, the mystery of suffering, and the realization that we, who are committed to Christ Jesus, live simultaneously in two worlds—one quite physically bound and one eternally spiritual. Lewis expresses in The Weight of Glory:

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

Part of what led Lewis to Christ was this unrelenting desire in his heart for something more. There is a common yearning in mankind for the world to be right, for joy and pleasure, something greater beyond oneself. In The Weight of Glory, he described, “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

The point Lewis is making is that humans were ultimately made for Heaven. We were not made simply for the pleasures of this earth, for these pleasures can only partially satisfy us, but we were made for eternality. We were made for paradise. Though paradise was lost with the entrance of sin into the world, the shadows of paradise still hint at our hearts that we are connected to a Divine Creator, and this desire for fellowship with this Creator is imprinted on every human’s very soul. We see shadows of things to come and feel desire for things our souls know of, but in our sin, our lives have not fully experienced. To Lewis, pleasure, laughter, fellowship, hobbies, recreation, beauty, etc., all come close to capturing those yearnings, desires, and shadows of “more” but yet they never fully satisfy the deep longing. Lewis would argue, at minimum, this proves that humans were indeed created for more than this earthly life and earthly fellowship. “He has also set eternity in their heart, without
the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NASB)

Because we feel such yearnings, we crave such beauty, we long for such “rightness,” it is only natural that we grieve at death because we were not made for death and brokenness, we were made for immortal love. Our hearts reject the curse of death. Our souls shudder at the pain because a separation has occurred—a very painful, abrupt separation as our very souls were designed for eternal fellowship. No wonder a part of us dies when someone we love dearly passes from the temporal to the everlasting. Those of us remaining are constrained and earthly bound, grasping for those we long to continue communion with. Our soul feels the ripping because it was never intended (or originally designed) to experience such fractures.

Raw with pain at the loss of his wife, Lewis, in A Grief Observed confesses the struggle to feel God’s nearness, “Meanwhile, where is God? … 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… There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house.” And this is the quandary of it all. Some feel such closeness of God during moments of hardship, while others feel such distance from God during tragic losses. And how does one explain such a mystery? How does one explain the goodness of a sovereign Lord who “gives and the Lord takes away” (Job 1:21)? How is His name still blessed in all of it? The question isn’t so much about losing one’s faith and beginning to believe that there is no God at all, for there is much proof of master design, good versus evil, and spiritual forces at work. But rather, the questions matter because we need to find some peace with the mystery of God’s constant love for us and goodness extended toward us even in the midst of senseless suffering. Personally, this mystery of God’s goodness being called into question was mostly laid to rest several years ago, but a dark resurrection of doubt arose at my most recent tragedy. I found that I was not alone, and C.S. Lewis, in the flood of his own grief, felt pulled under by the same wave of doubt.

Psalm 84:11 states, “No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” One is left wondering the definition of “good.” Losing my uncle at such a young age while facing other devastation simultaneously, felt the furthest thing from good for my family and I. Was it my uncle’s gain—absolutely. Was he understanding good in Heaven in a way he had never experienced before on earth? Yes. But the earthly timing and earthly loss felt so much less than good. In fact, it almost felt nasty. Lewis says about his wife, “I want her back as an ingredient in the restoration of my past. Could I have wished her anything worse? Having got once through death, to come back and then, at some later date, have all her dying to do over again? They called Stephen the first martyr. Hadn’t Lazarus the rawer deal?” (A Grief Observed). I could relate.

Lewis uses the analogy of a careful surgeon to help bring us some peace to the mystery of God’s goodness amid the universal affliction of suffering:

“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… 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.” (A Grief Observed)

We are exiles on earth, waiting for completeness, waiting for home, waiting for reunion and resurrection. Those in Christ are an extension of God’s Spirit. What we see on earth are glimmers of God through His people—we see aspects of Jesus residing in each being sanctified unto the Lord. How glorious and inexplicably “whole” will a reuniting with not only Christ but all His people be when we all have reached our final union with the Lord! There will be a fullness in resurrection that has never been experienced prior—we will become one and consumed by the beauty of the goodness of our Careful Surgeon. As a pastor, I knew once said, “Mere humans cannot grasp God’s wisdom… We have an enemy that works well getting us to depend on the wrong things.” That is why Jesus told us that we would be sent a Helper: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26)

There are times when it is too painful to pray and too confusing to find peace. It is in these times that “We hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently… the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:25-27) We can find rest in that.

Rebecca Greenfield is a certified Nuclear Medicine Technologist who carries a Master’s Degree in Theological Studies. One of her deepest desires is to create spaces and places where people can experience the presence of God through the power of written art. She is the author of seven books including RAW Inner Workings of a Reawakened Soul, The Prayer Crossing Personal Devotional, The Joel ‘Deep Dive’ Bible Study, and Dusternfuffle, a children’s book. To order a copy of any book, visit www.Rebecca-Greenfield.com or make checks payable to Reawakened Ministries ($17.99/copy) and mail to Cross Point Christian Church, Attn: Rebecca Greenfield, 10659 Johnstown Rd., New Albany, OH 43054.