PAIN

When CS Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain, he was a much happier man. Many years later when he wrote A Grief Observed, you will know that this is a memoir of sadness. Indeed it was! Lewis was writing after the death of his wife Joy Davidman. Although Lewis had been through a lot by that point already, having served in the war and lost family/friends, the grief he experienced at the death of Joy Davidman was different. He was not prepared for it and he mourned it in the best way he knew how to, he wrote down the feelings/emotions.

Lewis wrote “After the death of a friend, years ago, I had for some time a most vivid feeling of certainty about his continued life; even his enhanced life. I have begged to be given even one-hundredth part of the same assurance about H. There is no answer. Only the locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero.”

The experience of pain in the two circumstances was different.

The way we experience pain, grief, is different. We, humans, like to assume that “I know what it feels like to be in your shoes, hence I know how it feels”. I’m sorry, you don’t.

Pain feels different for everyone. This is not to discourage people from being with others in their moment of grief, this is rather, saying we should learn to not load over our definition of pain to the person. Take for instance, when my mother died, I was more pained by the fact that she won’t be here to receive my apologies. I was a wayward child. My sisters were probably pained by a different thing.

Of course, generally, we will all move on, but we must all heal, and we will differently. The workings that God will do for each of us will be unique. In fact, that has turned out to be the situation for my family.

I’ve seen this repeated again and again, whenever someone is going through pain, we make assumptions of what they are experiencing and offer recommendations that suit our understanding of that situation (I’ve done this several times myself), a lot of times we do this sincerely. By the way, what else can we do other than this?

In the end, the point of this post is to tell you to let people experience their pain in their style. Don’t load it over them to heal or react in a particular way. And yes, be there! Always be there.

 

Yesterday, we lost a dear mother. I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know what to feel. The feeling is blankness! Stunning blankness. There’s just a deep dark void that no word can explain; sadness, anger, uncertainty, etc are there but I can’t sort them!

Will everything be alright from hence? Just pray for the family!