good read

I finished A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis earlier today. Great book, wow. I picked it up a few weeks ago, and it's been so good for my heart. It's an honest account of Lewis' grief in the wake of his wife's death. While there were some sections I couldn't identify with because my loss was not of the spouse variety, on the whole the book gave a voice to much of the hurt I've felt recently. I thought I would share a passage I particularly enjoyed.

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 moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't. Either way, we're for it.

I'm learning that this is not a "test of my faith," nor is it an exercise in detachment where I just ascribe everything to the "sovereignty of God" and keep going about my day. This is a part of my story, like it or not. This hurt, this sorrow, is a process, is a journey. Slowly, I'm moving through it. Timidly, I'm opening my heart to be healed. For some reason, in the midst of all my bitching, all my screaming, all my anger and frustration, God hasn't gone anywhere. Why he sticks around for someone like me, I don't know that my finite mind will ever comprehend.