In the course of life, each and every single man and woman faces grief. Someone does not have to die for someone to grieve. Grief can involve losing a best friend, failing a test, or even going bankrupt. To be quite honest, when someone is hurting, these words will rarely come out of our mouths; “Well this isn’t too bad, there are always people in starving countries that are worse off than I.” Relatively, on the other hand, lament souls tend to focus on themselves using phrases and sayings like “Why is this happening to me?” “I don’t deserve this!” Yet, property, as well as values, can be restored, but a life cannot be restored. Therefore, it could be argued that the greatest personal grief to be experienced in life is death of loved ones. Grief Observed, written by C.S. Lewis would agree. A Grief Observed is a collection of C. S. Lewis’s reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, Joy Gresham, in 1960. The book is put togther from the four notebooks which Lewis used to vent and explore his grief. He illustrates the everyday trials of his life without Joy and explores fundamental questions of faith. A big part of Lewis’s life was taken away when his other half died. According to the information in the bible, when a man and woman are united in marriage they become “one flesh.” If one of the individuals making up that “one flesh” were to die, then in it should seen that half of the married person will be harmed. Therefore one could argue that the married person who was yet still alive is actually dead. Immediately, Lewis began to “lose it”, so to speak, retreating from other people, which is very typical for a bereaved person who is mourning the loss of a loved. Lewis, like many who have lost a loved one, turned away from others, hiding from everyone and everything, yet at the same time screaming on the inside for someone to comfort him. Lewis knew that he needed some extra comfort, but would rather feel sorry for himself than get up to find a support. Lewis compares himself to the image of the “dog-tired” man who, on a cold night, desires an extra blanket yet would “rather lie there shivering than get up and find one” (page 4). Eventually, Lewis’ excuse against seeking solace turns from laziness to fear.
What chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers H. and I offered and all the false hope we had. Not hope raised merely by our own wishful thinking, hopes encouraged, even forced upon us, by false diagnosis, by x-ray photographs, by strange remissions, by one temporary recovery that might have ranked as a miracle. Step by step we were ‘led up the garden path.’ Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture.” (page 30) To be quite honest, I have to re-read all of Lewis’s works because he is such a complex writer. This has to be one of my favorite quotes in the entire book. I can admit that I am a very slow reader, but when I first read this part of the book I did not understand what Lewis was fully trying to say. I always knew C.S Lewis to be an awesome writer and man of God, so I didn’t want to really believe what he was saying about God. I then had to realize that every single person not his entire earth has to go through some sort of grief when they are going through a tough situation, because as humans we are built off of our emotions. When I finally realized that Lewis is human just as we are I could connect more and more to this passage and what is was portraying. Time after time Lewis and his wife Joy would pray to God and ask Him for healing. When Joy seemed to be alright everything was great, but then she became sick again and died. Lewis began to feel such a betrayal from God wondering why He would take the love of His life away from Him. We all question God, but we don’t merely question Him we yell in anger and bitter emotion to God, which made me realize something. How does God feel when we lose our faith? How does He feel when we have anger and animosity towards Him? Can we hurt God by our little feelings? I believe that we can hurt God’s feelings after blaming Him over and over for every little situation, but then we, as Christians, have to sit down and realize that we do not dictate life. We simply just live it according to God’s will. We cannot control anything, only our Creator can. I am not saying that it is bad to pray, all I believe is that if God has a plan then it does not matter what we want or what we do, it is still going to be fulfilled no matter how we feel or will feel about it.
This story was about C.S Lewis grieving over the loss of his dearly and beloved wife H. I have to say that even though Lewis did not intend for this to be a novel, I believe that it will help people now and in the future when they begin to deal with a loss of a loved one. It is ok to mourn over the loss of someone you love, but it is not ok to blame God for every single thing. Of course we will sometimes in our life, but we shouldn’t do it all the time. I’m sure we don’t blame God when something good happens, so why do we always do it when something bad happens? It’s because we are miserable! We do not understand why our loving God, the One who created and loves us unconditionally, would put us in a situation like this. The bible also says that God will not put anything on us that is too hard to bear. In all, this does mean that He cares whether we want to believe it or not, God cares! Eventually Lewis got a grip on his grieving and began to live life again. Why? Because our Creator knew that he could get through a rough time like this one.
