The Healing Journey

May 18, 2025

Give us joy even in our suffering. What an unusual request of the Holy Spirit.

C.S. Lewis’ autobiography of his early years was titled “Surprised by Joy,” a title taken from a famous sonnet by the English poet William Wordsworth. What the famous Christian apologist discovered in early life — when he was a self-proclaimed atheist — is that joy would suddenly and inexplicably intrude in his life, and from these experiences, he came to realize that God does, indeed, exist and wants us to be happy. In fact, Lewis experienced joy even though during those times in life when he was miserable, sad, dejected and searching. God has his ways, and as Jesus himself said, the “Holy Spirit blows where he will.”

As one critic wrote, Lewis discovered that “joy is like a signpost to those lost in the woods, pointing the way, and that its appearance is not as important ‘when we have found the road.’” Doesn’t that sound like the healing journey that everyone suffering a loss in life will have to make?

Lewis was one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century and went on to write some 30 books, many of them on topics such as grief, doubt and pain. So he knew what he was talking about, especially when it came to loss. After his wife Joyce died of an illness, he wrote “A Grief Observed,” and when he was 10 years old, his mother underwent surgery for cancer and died shortly afterward. Of that death, he wrote, “With my mother’s death, all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.”
©J Pisani

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