The hope our faith gives us has allowed us to conquer lockdown and look forward

One of the most famous British religious thinkers of the 20th Century was C.S. Lewis.

A gifted writer he was a professor a t Ox f o r d Uni v e r s i t y . He l i v e d a privileged life mainly untouched by the troubles of ordinary life. And yet from his Ivory Tower, he felt confident enough to tackle the difficult questions of life.

Without any real first hand experience himself, he confidently lectured others on God and human suffering asserting the following: “God is not eager for our suffering but eager for our love. God hungers for us to grow up and love him as an adult. And he does not spare us the pain of growth. God is the divine sculptor who lovingly hones and sculpts us into works of art. The pain we experience is no more than the blows of the artists chisel.”

Lewis’s insights though brilliant and profound were lacking personal experience. Cocooned from the world, he had constructed his life free from the messy business of human love and relationships.

But all that changed when his future wife walked into his life. She fell in love with him, but he was afraid to return her feelings. It was only when she was finally diagnosed with cancer that C.S. Lewis admitted the depth of his love for her. But, by then it was too late. Her illness already far advanced would take her from him only weeks after they were married.

Devastated by his loss C.S. Lewis raged against God, how could he cause his children to suffer so. All his former eloquence and clever answers to the question of human suffering now seemed just such nonsense.

I n h i s b o o k a Hu m a n G r i e f Observed Lewis plumbed the depth of grief, loss and despair. But eventually he realised that it was only in loving his wife that he had truly begun to live. And although the pain of her loss had been almost too much to bear, he recognised that this love, which had the power to reach beyond the grave, endured still and continued to enrich and bless his life, in so many and unfathomable ways.

In these months of the pandemic many have lost loved ones and the pain of grief, as with any bereavement is sometimes unbearable and overwhelming. When you add to this the very restrictive nature of funerals; the limit remains at 20 mourners still at this time with a truncated and brief funeral service. It leaves a further bitter taste and sense of unfinished business or of even of letting down our loved one.

At the height of the lockdown, a friend of mine who had looked after her father for many years at home lost him suddenly when he passed away in nursing home from COVID. She returned home alone immediately after a brief graveside service. None of the family were able to accompany her home or stay and comfort her on that darkest of days. She said she had never been more alone in her life. Many other have had to face such heartbreaking moments in these last months.

As Christians nears, we are in no doubt that God our Father sees every tear we shed, and knows how broken our fragile hearts are.

God never leaves us to grieve alone, but gives us the comfort of hope and assurance of faith.

For God holds in his safekeeping and eternal embrace of love all those we have for only a short time lost. But we shall greet them again when Christ’s love, which conquers all things overcomes death too: that is our faith and our steadfast hope – the hope of heaven.