Suffering

A Grief Ignored | Madeleine L’Engle on A Grief Observed

Kirk E. Miller

Madeleine L’Engle writes this in the foreword to A Grief Observed, reflecting on Lewis’s raw honesty in grief—particularly his frustration with overly tidy religious responses to suffering and death:

“Perhaps all believing people feel, like Lewis, a horror of those who say of any tragedy, ‘Thy will be done,’ as though a God of love never wills anything but good for us creatures.”1

L’Engle states that many people of faith (“perhaps all believing people”)—including C.S. Lewis—might feel revulsion (“horror”) or discomfort when they hear someone respond to deep suffering or tragedy with a pious phrase like “Thy will be done.” Why? Because it can sound like they’re glossing over the tragedy and pain of the event, assuming that God only ever wills things that are obviously good and easy for us. Lewis is wrestling with a God whose will might include real pain—things which certain don’t feel “good,” and at many times are not at all good in and other themselves. Lewis bristles at those who piously smooth over such realities with their theological cliches and simplicities.

L’Engle continues:

“He [Lewis] shows impatience with those who try to pretend that death is unimportant for the believer, an impatience which most of us feel, no matter how strong our faith.”

Lewis rejects the idea that believers shouldn’t grieve deeply, as if death were no big deal because of our hope in resurrection. He finds it dishonest or unhuman when Christians act like faith removes the sting of death.

Lewis speaks specifically of death, since he is reflecting here on the death of his wife. But the same can be true of other griefs and forms of suffering.

L’Engle agrees: most of us, even strong believers, share this impatience. When we ourselves our faced with person grief or pain, don’t want to skip over it with clichés. We want to face sorrow honestly, stare it directly in the eyes, and acknowledge it for what it actually is. That’s precisely what Lewis does in A Grief Observed.

“I am grateful to Lewis for the honesty of his journal of grief, because it makes quite clear that the human being is allowed to grieve, that it is normal, it is right to grieve, and the Christian is not denied this natural response to loss.”2

“Don’t talk to me about the consolations of religion,” Lewis writes, “or I shall suspect that you do not understand.”3

Lewis is saying: if you come to me in my grief with nice-sounding religious comfort, like “she’s in a better place” or “everything happens for a reason,” I will assume you haven’t truly felt this kind of loss. Why? Because in his raw sorrow, those phrases feel hollow—even offensive. They can come across as shallow attempts to move past the pain rather than sit in it with someone.

As L’Engle’s reflects, “For the true consolations of religion are not rosy and cozy, but comforting in the true meaning of that word: com-fort: with strength. Strength to go on living.”4 Real religious comfort isn’t about being told things that make us feel instantly better. It’s not about sentimental peace or cheerful optimism. Instead, it’s about being given strength to endure.

The word comfort comes from Latin roots meaning “with strength” (com- = with, fortis = strong). So real comfort from God doesn’t erase grief, but it helps you stand under its weight and keep going. It doesn’t erase grief; it endures it.

It doesn’t ignore grief; it observes it.

Notes

  1. Madeleine L’Engle, “Foreword,” in A Grief Observed (HarperOne, 1996), xiii ↩︎
  2. Ibid., xiv. ↩︎
  3. Ibid., xv ↩︎
  4. Ibid., xv–xvi ↩︎

Honoring God with Our Complaints (Laments)

Kirk E. Miller

Honoring God with Our Complaints: A Case for Laments
Faith Community Church
January 5th, 2025

Podcast link.

True Community Starts Where Convenience Ends (Romans 12:15)

Kirk E. Miller

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (Roman 12:15 ESV)

The above commands are harder than we might assume at first blush.

When we are weeping, it can be hard to rejoice, let alone rejoice with others in their rejoicing. Their own rejoicing can remind us of our own lack thereof. Or we can even be tempted towards envy.

When others are weeping, weeping with them requires the inconvenience of acknowledging their turmoil and entering it with them. This always requires sacrifices, and sometimes we’d rather stick our heads in the sand rather than be disturbed by inconvenient truths.

Both commands, in other words, require de-centering ourselves and centering others, which, in my experience, we don’t like to do. We like to think we like to do this, and we convince ourselves by doing so in ways and at times when it’s convenient. Community is easy when all is well. But even when such community feels vibrant and meaningful, it’s nothing more than a “thick clique” if it reaches its limits at the point when things get hard. That’s not community; that’s just the facade, a cheap replica.

Love loves through the difficulty.

The Harmful Simplicity of Reductionistic Theology

Kirk E. Miller

I take no issue with making the gospel central in all things (the church, preaching, the Christian life, etc.)

But one of the results of a malformed gospel-centeredness is a reductionistic theology that treats nearly every issue someone faces as a matter of sin to be dealt with. Sin is always seen, diagnosed, and treated as a root cause. Why? Because if the gospel is the solution to everything, and that gospel is primarily, if not exclusively, understood in terms of addressing sin, then sin is always the issue, and addressing sin with the gospel is always the solution.

I theorize we’re also susceptible due to a simplistic conception of total depravity. We give our doctrine of total depravity what we might call “maximalist” interpretive power. Yes, we are pervasively sinful (Isa 1:6). Total depravity is true. But, along with our simplistic gospel-centeredness, we misconstrue the doctrine of total depravity into a fixation on looking for sin everywhere. We misapply the doctrine of total depravity by searching for sin “behind every bush” and over-spiritualizing situations. But not everything is sin or is to explained by sin—at the very least, not exclusively so.

Added to this, training in pastoral counseling often focuses on teaching pastors how to address sin. So pastors are hardwired to approach situations in terms of sin and sanctification. Those are their default operating categories. The danger is, when you’re a hammer, you start to see everything as a nail.

I call all of this “reductionistic” because it takes true things (e.g., sin and a gospel that addresses it), but embraces these true things at the exclusion of other true things. For instance, someone comes to a pastor in suffering. But, instead of seeing their signs of trauma and affliction for what they are, the pastor diagnoses them as displaying a sinful refusal trust in God, rest in Christ, and obey the call to contentment. Instead of caring for the person and acknowledging their plight, they add insult to injury: they take someone who is suffering, and now further inflict them with wrongful condemnation. Often the suffering is ignored as not the “real” issue. Moreover, the sufferer may be treated as contentious or unrepentant when they (rightly) push back at the bad counsel.

The reality, though, is that humans are both sinners and sufferers. We are not only perpetrators of evil, but also victims to it. We not only sin; we are also sinned against. And the gospel meets not merely our sin but also our suffering. The good news (gospel) is not only that our sin is forgiven, but that Christ will undue the curse in all its effects—including evil and suffering.

This means, for example, that:

  • Although the Bible tells us to cast our cares on God (1 Peter 5:7), it also leads us in lament (complaint) to God (see the Psalter). Apparently the two are not mutually exclusive!
  • Or again, God is sovereign, but humans are also responsible. God’s sovereignty is not an excuse for inaction and resigning ourselves to evil and injustice. Sovereignty isn’t the same as fatalism; God uses means.
  • Yes, we are to forgive those who sinned against us (Eph 4:32). Yes, God will ultimately judge when Christ comes again (Acts 17:31). But God also establishes means for provisional justice in this life too (e.g., Rom 13:1–7). These are not mutually exclusive.
  • God works all things for good for those who love him (Rom 8:28). Yet among the things he works for good are things that are evil (see vv.35–39). Just because he works something for good does not mean it itself is good—and we don’t need to pretend that it is! These, too, are not mutually exclusively.

We could go on…

Why this matters? Bad theology makes for bad counsel. More pointedly, bad pastoral theology makes for pastoral malpractice—even spiritual abuse.

Does Time Heal All Wounds? How “Getting Over It” Is the Wrong Approach to Grief

Kirk E. Miller

People say, “Time heals all wounds.” We talk about “getting over” things or “moving on.”

I think this can be true in some instances. For instance, maybe a dream you had doesn’t materialize. You grieve what never was, only to conclude, after some time passes, that you no longer desire that dream anymore. So you’re “over it.”

But in general, I tend not to like this framing (“getting over it,” “moving on”). I don’t think it’s true in a lot of instances. For example, when a loved one dies, do you ever “move on” and “get over it”, or do you—hopefully, because even this isn’t always the case—just learn to live with it, grow accustom to it, acquire the ability to manage it? In fact, it’s a bit messed up to assume we should just “move on” from a loved one’s passing, as if we come to accept it (death isn’t acceptable, and time doesn’t make it so). The same can be said of other suffering and evil we endure. Time doesn’t somehow undo those things.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds. That’s simply false. And arguably it’s an anti-Christian eschatology that sees time as salvific rather than the return of Christ (see Rev 21:4 where Christ wipes away all tears). Time can create some distance from the immediacy of our wounds, making the pain less sharp, more dull. But I think the pain is often still there. Instead, we (again, hopefully) simply learn to accommodate it.

“Time doesn’t heal all wounds. That’s simply false. And arguably it’s an anti-Christian eschatology that sees time as salvific rather than the return of Christ.”

This, of course, doesn’t mean we are resigned to wallow in our grief. Hope is a virtue according to the New Testament (alongside faith and love, e.g., 1 Cor 13:13). In other words, hope is something we must exercise. It’s not something we just happen to experience if we’ve lucky enough to experience its conditions, as if hope happens to us. No, we must fight to fixate on our hope. And that hope has a name: Jesus.

Nonetheless, hope anticipates what’s future. So, at present, hope does not undo suffering, pain, and grief. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, Paul says we do not grieve as those who lack hope. Nonetheless, he does say we grieve! Hope does not erase or invalidate grief. Hope sees its reversal as already accomplished, but not yet fulfilled; already won, but not yet enacted. Each side of this coin is important; to neglect one at the expense of the other is to adopt something less-than-Christian.

So we resist the sort of “toxic positivity”—yes, even its Christian variety; especially its Christian variety!—that, whether stated or unstated, expects one always to be happy, never to be sad or hurt. The Christian way is neither stoicism that tells us to simply accept what is (i.e., our problem is trying to resist) nor some Jesus-branded Buddhism that tells us our problem is our longings (i.e., we suffer because of unmet longing; so if simply we rid ourselves of longing, we eliminate suffering). No, Christian hope protests both these options. It forces us to long for something more—not to accept what is—to long for Christ (maranatha).

Lament has a firm place in our faith. In fact, lament is an act of hope, putting the current sorrows, evil, and pain into confrontation with the God of hope. Indeed, a failure to grieve and mourn the pain and evil of this word is not virtue but apathy.