Many of you who know me know that this semester I am taking perhaps the greatest class in the history of classes: a class devoted entirely to the thoughts and works of C.S. Lewis. Even if you do not know me but have happened upon this blog before, the evidence of C.S. Lewis’ impact on my life is probably evident in most thoughts I have and therefore most posts I write.
One of the themes we keep addressing in the class is the idea of human suffering: Why does it happen? What is God’s role in it? How should we respond to it? Lewis contemplates these questions a great deal in a deeply personal way in his book A Grief Observed, which we read and have been discussing in class. In response to the reading and discussion, my professor asked each of us in our class to write a short reflection in the form of a letter to a hypothetical person wrestling these questions.
I did not originally intend to share this reflection with anyone but my professor, but it has been in the back of my mind since I wrote it that, although I am by no means qualified to answer these questions either by wisdom or experience, I should still attempt it. We all should. In the town I left behind, there is a great deal of suffering going on. Many individuals are hurting, and because we love them, we hurt as a community. This hurt did not pass me by because I am not present. But I also realize this hurt is in no way limited to people I know and love. We all suffer. We all hurt. We all have unanswered and unanswerable questions. I cannot and will not pretend to have any more complete answers than you, my beloved readers, but I lay before you the fragments of answers I do have in the hope that maybe together, we can make some sense of them.
“To whom it may concern:
Please know first and foremost that I cannot and do not presume to know the depth or breadth or longevity or extremity of your pain; only that I can see you are experiencing pain and it saddens me beyond expression.
If you are like me, and I imagine you are at least in the sense which I am about to address, I know that in the midst of your suffering there lie many questions about why this has happened to you, and perhaps why it has happened at all. If you want answers, I am not the person to question, but I can say that I know deeply and personally the one you ought to question, and it is from his word and from others’ understanding of his character that I draw out these words for you now, which, though I know will not suffice in eliminating your doubts, I hope will at least cause those doubts to subside their crashing on your soul and sit still again. I find they are far more manageable in this state.
Our God is still good, and he still loves us. That is the beginning and the end--the only certainty I have in the midst of my own suffering and the only hope I can offer you in the midst of yours. How do I know with absolute certainty? I don’t. But any alternatives I can come up with are so improbable and so easily brought down that I can hardly consider them. I am as certain as one can possibly be. If God is good but does not love us, it does not matter to us that he is good: we are none of his concern. If God loves us but is not good, it does not matter to us that he loves us: love, like fire, is a tool when it is good and a weapon when it is bad. If God is not good and does not love us, neither matters: if this is the case, nothing matters at all.
In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis spends a great deal of time discussing the goodness of God (and on that note, I recommend this book to you as Lewis is far wiser than I). One question I find myself asking frequently is, “If God loves me, why does he let me hurt so badly?” Similarly, when I see devastation around the world, and when I see people in pain who I know have fewer resources than I do to combat it, I ask, “If God loves at all, why does he allow this?” Lewis has the closest thing I know to an answer: “The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the world ‘love,’ and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre.” I know this may not feel particularly comforting to consider at this time, but it is always worth considering: there are things, or at least a Thing, that is bigger and more significant than us. We believe that he loves us, and sometimes it is hard to reconcile the pain and suffering we experience with that belief, but in those instances I think it is not my God or my circumstances that should change, but rather my perception and expectations of both--not to say that my suffering is any less real or horrible or that my God is any less complicated, but that my suffering, though horrible, is necessary, and that my God, though complicated, is good.
Ultimately, there are true and false beliefs about God, but at the present time, there is no way to completely, beyond all doubts, separate the two. So for this time, the decision-maker is you. Weigh what you believe to be true against what others believe. Weigh it against what you can see. Weigh it against what you feel. Weigh it against all you think you know and realize how little you truly know, and strive not to know more, but to “misunderstand a little less completely.” In A Grief Observed, Lewis refers to his false hopes and understandings as a house of cards, which easily falls. When your house of cards falls, he suggests, don’t go to work immediately replacing it with new cards. Replace it with a solid foundation, that it may never fall again, and that even if it does fall again, you will not feel like you are reduced to nothing, as we do when we settle for anything less than a continually growing understanding.
The picture I want to leave you with is one found in the book of Lamentations: a broken man looking out over a broken world and taking in the vast, seemingly insurmountable suffering that small part of the world has seen. After spilling out a continuous stream of grief, the man experiences a moment of clarity: “For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.” This too shall pass, and restoration is coming. How do I know with absolute certainty? I don’t. But if the pattern continues as it has throughout the history of man, I can trust without absolutes that our God will bring ultimate healing and restoration. I trust without absolutes that you will soon be able to do the same.”
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” -Lamentations 3:21-23
