April 26, 2023
“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.”
– C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis was one of the most popular Christian apologists of the 20th century. His writings on pain and miracles and his personal experience of grief have been reprinted countless times over the decades. And yet he realized that during his grief when people talked with religious platitudes as a balm for his suffering, they didn’t get it. After your loss, people with tell you, “She’s in a better place” or “God is always with you” or “Suffering brings you closer to God.” Rather than be consoling, you might conclude, as Lewis did, that spiritual sayings, no matter how well intended, are not what you need. A sympathetic ear, a compassionate heart, the realization that someone else has been through what you are going through are consolations that transcend words. A meal, a card, or shared tears from someone who cried with you …. cherish these things because that is God reaching out to you through another person, and wishing to remain anonymous. He does it for everyone — people of great faith, people of little faith, and people of no faith.
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Perhaps weeks, maybe months or even years later, you will see God’s invisible hand at work, and you will only then understand he never left you.