My Grief Observed

For any who've followed this blog, you would have noted that in my most recent (yes, quite some time back) entry, I spoke of my beloved's cancer. Sadly, the cancer took her life. It has, and in many respects continues to be a difficult time. I have to admit that it hit me hard with regard to my faith, and I'm still sorting all that out. Not the foundation, but the doctrines of healing and relief of suffering. I have been helped by C.S. Lewis's "A Grief Observed". He too experienced the loss of his wife to cancer, and experienced a kind of rage toward God, a fist shaking anger about the injustice of it all, in his mind at least. I identified with Lewis (mind you, if you pick up this book, you have to read it to the end. You absolutely cannot stop before you finish). It seems that this book was actually Lewis's journal in the aftermath of his wife's death. It is a much more real and, to my mind at least, usefull book than "Good Grief". Good Grief is a popular book for chaplains and ministers to hand out, and I used to be one who recommended it, that is until I had to face my own grief. Then I realized how shallow and sterile "Good Grief" is. It ended up in my trash can. In the end, Lewis resolves that there really is no understanding why God would allow his child to suffer and die. It is beyond our understanding. In the end we must come to grips with that fact. There are a lot of other topics in the book, such as the idealizing or setting up a false icon of the dead beloved, Lewis deals with that effectively as well.