A Grief Observed

by C.S. Lewis

me there would be other loves to find and no doubt in time to lose or be lost by. But for Jack this was the end of so much which life had for so long denied him and then briefly held out to him like a barren promise.

for the greater the love the greater the grief, and the stronger the faith the more savagely will Satan storm its fortress.

I soon learned not to talk rot to her unless I did it for the sheer pleasure—and there’s another red-hot jab—of being exposed and laughed at. I was never less silly than as H.’s lover.

Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?

The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’

God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is now doomed to crawl back—to be sucked back—into it?

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.