(The following is an article I wrote just a month or so after the passing of my wife of fifty-two years. I share it now to edify widowed folks.)
The above quote from C. S. Lewis's A Grief Observed struck me this morning:
"Nothing will shake a man -- or at any rate a man like
me -- out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has
to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out
the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."
That phrase, "a man like me," highlights the fact
that we are individuals, and so our experience of grief is personal. And what
God is trying to do in each of our lives through our common loss, is unique.
I some ways I'm a man like Lewis (though not nearly of his
intellectual stature!). I enjoy study and I love to discover new things. I like
to ponder the implications of what I discover. How should this influence or
even change my life?
I try to approach the Bible as a new adventure every time I read it, attempting
to enter into the historical setting in which each passage was given, feeling
what the writer and his audience would have been feeling. Then I look for the
underlying, universal principle that applies to my life in this technological
21st century.
Lewis, on the other hand, though half-Welsh as I am, does not seem to have been
as emotional or even mystical as I am. He was also more philosophical, while
I'm more concrete. In contrast to Lewis's self-assessment, my beliefs and my
faith were never, to the extent that I know myself, merely "verbal"
or "notional." What I firmly believe, I believe deeply. If I'm not
willing to die for it, I don't claim it has a conviction--only as a theory yet
to be confirmed.
So what does all this have to do with the loss of my wife
and Lewis's observation about his loss? My convictions have been tested to the
core and continue to be tested in this first year of my bereavement. And I have
discovered that I'm not "a man like" Lewis. Just days after my wife's
passing, alone in this big empty house, I was overtaken with profound,
agonizing grief, and I cried out loud to God in sobs and tears. What came out
of my mouth surprised me: "Oh God! You are good! You are always good!"
What surprised me even more when I reflected on it later was that I meant it
from the heart. There was no one else to hear it but me and God. I knew in that
moment of extreme trial that my faith was genuine. The Spirit of God was
testifying with my spirit that I am a son of God. (Romans 8:16).
Our grief will certainly bring to light things about ourselves that we didn't
know--or didn't want to know. And I have learned a lot about my skewed
priorities and my selfish desires in these months. But I've been greatly
encouraged regarding my relationship with my Lord by faith. "My anchor
holds!"
