Lewis discusses how he initially was very angry that he couldn’t find any photographs of his wife that properly captured her likeness. Klerk, within the four brief chapters Lewis very honestly writes his heart onto the pages as he works through the grief of the loss of his wife, and considers how the new life he must live on the other side of hers affects his understanding of God.Īlthough I expect many of the profound lessons in these brief pages will come up in conversations here at a later date, I wanted to share one specific thought that meant a great deal to me. Originally published under the pseudonym of N.W. And there would’ve been no less than thirty-seven stars in the margins. If I this had been my own copy of the book, I might’ve underlined the entire manuscript from start to finish. Packed inside the brief 76 pages there is more wisdom than I have probably successfully communicated in the 633 posts that make up this little website to date.

How I ended up checking this particular book out at the local library is a story for another day. Lewis penned after the loss of his wife, Joy. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice.L ast night I finished the brief writings C.S. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. This leads him to ponder deeply on the nature of faith. At first he felt as if a door had been slammed in his face, when he turned to God. One aspect I found very striking was how his hitherto strong faith was tested. Initially, he is shocked at how much his grief overwhelms him, forming an “invisible blanket between the world and me”, and he is remarkably forthcoming about how isolated he feels and how difficult he finds it to talk about his loss with family, friends and acquaintances. Each chapter explores a new phase of mourning as he openly and honestly sets out his deeply personal feelings that involve shock, anger, despair and ultimately acceptance.

The film Shadowlands (1993), about his relationship with the American poet Joy Davidman Gresham, whom he lost to cancer after four years of an intensely happy marriage, led me to A Grief Observed, his searingly honest, searching meditation on the anguish caused by that loss.Ĭomprising four chapters, the book recounts Lewis’s progression through the stages of grief as he struggles to come to terms with his wife’s death. CS Lewis was an academic, writer and Christian apologist, best known now for his children’s book series The Chronicles of Narnia.

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