In his book A Grief Observed, CS Lewis writes the following after posing some 'hard hitting' questions to God about a difficult circumstance in his life (the death of his wife):
"When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, "Peace, child; you don't understand.'
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask--half our great theological and metaphysical problems--are like that."
When I get frustrated, angry, fearful, or just plain impatient, sick and tired of monitoring moods, of one more trip to the doctor, of one more trip to the pharmacist, wondering why God is allowing ME to have this illness, I imagine God gently and compassionately saying to me,
"Peace, Laurie; you just don't understand."
God's ways are mysterious, and lately I've been praying a lot that His will would be my will.
I pray for all of us that God would fulfil His purpose and His will through us, that He would glorify His name through our 'broken bodies'.
Thank you for sharing the quotation and your honest heart cry.
You are a encouragement to me and a big blessing in my time here on this forum.
Remember Don't give up, God is with you all the way!
Last night I read Psalms 119. A few of the verses spoke to me one particularly was verse 28
"My soul weeps because of grief; Strengthen me according to Thy word." NASB
and then when I continued to read down the chapter verse 50 says this,
"This is my comfort in my affliction, that Thy word has revived me." NASB
In my grief and affliction I do feel dead and I need to be revived.
I love the book of Psalms, I can so relate to David. I wander how much he might of struggle with depression as well. He surely had a lot of circumstances in his life to give him circumstantial depression.
Praying for you, that you will continue to find comfort in your struggles.
so i've been a total slacker at checking this board - but i'm trying to catch up and this caught my eye because i LOVE C. S. Lewis. I read everything i can get my hands on that he wrote!
