A grief observed

In respect to the topic I last addressed about pain, Lewis came face to face with it in the grief he experienced in the wake of his wife Joy's death. Lewis had allowed himself to fall in love in the latter years of his life and just as he did, his love was taken from him. He wrote about his pain in A Grief Observed and there he deals very honestly with his struggle with understanding how God could let such a thing happen and why wouldn't he do anything about it. He writes, 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 window. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble? .... Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there is no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer.' Later Lewis writes, 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.'

Next week is the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birthday and Calvin was big on the sovereignty of God -- that nothing happens without the foreknowledge and permission of God. So when the bad things happen we are compelled to delve into the mystery of God and wonder -- what is God up to? How can "all things work together for good"? The answer are never easy, but if we believe in a God who has a purpose for each of our lives -- then we must "live into" both the good and the bad and be willing to let God say to us, "Peace, child; you don't understand." All along believing that God is at our side even when we don't feel him. More on this later.