Grief: C.S. Lewis

I want to take this grief I’ve experienced this weekend and wrap it up and keep it close to my heart. I can’t feel it all the time. It’s too sharp. But to remember it. To remember how thin the veil is between Earth and Heaven. I want to go home and never stress the little things ever again. I want to remember that at anytime this life may end or it may ask me to move on without someone I love dearly in. It. 

Oh and to have a funeral for myself where people proclaimed Christ’s love as they did last night! We grieved not for Chris. We grieved for ourselves and the pain of his loss that will forever remain. I want my funeral just like that. But I want an altar call too. A chance to redicate lives for the first or last time to Christ. 

People will find and follow Jesus through Christopher’s legacy. Rest assured. 

Carrie said to the packed house at the funeral of her brother last night, “If you are without hope tonight, don’t worry. You can borrow some of mine.”

To have that kind of hope. That Jesus is real. Oh that we all could say good bye knowing that he is with the Father. 

Chris’ neighbor had a chat with Andrew, the brother of their tribe. Laced with profanities he told Andrew that Chris was the only friend he had in the neighborhood of 16,000 people. Chris didn’t care that he swore. That his house was a mess. He just cared. 

And this neighbor felt love from Chris.. 

I’m going to be flying back to TN and getting away with my family for a few days. Unplugging. If you come to my Blog and see nothing new, read these quotes on grief by C.S. Lewis again and again. And remember that this life is but s vapor. Where will you spend eternity? 

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1The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me,

for the LORD has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted

and to proclaim that captives will be released

and prisoners will be freed.a

2He has sent me to tell those who mourn

that the time of the LORD’s favor has come,b

and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.

3To all who mourn in Israel,c

he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,

a joyous blessing instead of mourning,

festive praise instead of despair.

In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks

that the LORD has planted for his own glory.

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It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The death of a beloved is an amputation.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, hoever, turns out to be not a state but a process.

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed