In response to chapters 3-4 of "A Grief Observed"

My response to these last two chapters may be quite a bit different from my response to the first two chapters.  I feel that I need to speak more about what I'm thinking and feeling inside as opposed to what C.S. Lewis is feeling and then me commenting on it here and there.  Lewis is a brilliant man and I will write a few things here and there that drove my thoughts and feelings.

Lewis said "I had been warned—I had warned myself—not to reckon on worldly happiness."  When we do this, our emotional breakdowns will only be more dramatic and heart breaking.  We, as Christians, are to store our treasures, thoughts, and happiness on things above and not on earthly things.  Death is tragic, but if we can wrap our minds around the fact that this life is only temporary and pales in comparison to the life that succeeds it, then our hearts may be quicker to heal.

Lewis mourned for ten days and described the weather as "low hung grey skies and motionless warm dampness."  After those ten days, he claimed he felt less grief than he ever had and that his heart was light...the sun was shining.  I love the description that Lewis has laid out here.  Our times here on earth are filled with "low hung grey skies and motionless warm dampness" in a figurative way more than literal.  But this is only temporary.  The sun will shine and we will be taken up into glory with our Father.  This may seem cheesy to some, but I saved this quote from "Batman:  The Dark Night" in my phone immediately after hearing it when my youth group went to go see it on opening night.  One of the characters said, "The night is always darkest just before the dawn, but the dawn is coming."  Jesus is coming and our grief will permanently decease.

I went to visit Tiger Flowers cemetery today.  As I walked around the cemetery, I read tombstones and counted the years of the lives that now laid there, read passages from "A Grief Observed," and even related these events to my own life.  How did I do this?  Well, when I hear of someone who is going through a hard time due to the death of a loved one, I put myself in their shoes.  What if that had been my mom, dad, brothers, girlfriend, friends?  I have been so blessed because I have never lost a closed loved one and I always think "how will I make it if I do?"  Lewis said "Whatever fools may say, the body can suffer twenty times more than the mind."  To be tortured physically and to be tortured mentally are two very different tortures.  Mental torture does seem to be very devastating.  There were two tombstones together where a father and his son lay.  To one's surprise, the father outlived the son by twelve years.  I thought..."what if that was my family's situation?"  These questions come to mind and it helps me to picture the lives of the people that are now buried in the cemetery.  Oddly enough, I even thought of events that were going on during the early 1900s when these two men were in their prime, such as the office of Teddy Roosevelt.

Death is not to be taken lightly.  I believe that it is the worst torture one can go through.  Death does provide many opportunities that we need to take a hold of and to not let our situation bring us down to change us into people that are opposite of what God has called us to be.  Any of these opportunities may be drawing closer to God, learning, growing, and thinking on whole new levels in all areas of our lives, especially spiritually.  When all is taken into consideration, there is one thing that I am sure of…God is good and His love never fails.

I went to the Lakeview, Roselawn and Tiger Flowers cemetery complex for this fieldtrip, and I stayed there for at least 40 minutes.