C.S. Lewis stands out like neon against all the so-called 'self-help' books that are useless with their hideous recipes for 'getting over' grief as if it is a blip on Life's path, instead of the sacred passage that it is.

It was this book that kept me sane by it's searing truth, and inspired me to write all those things that I was afraid to say out loud.

Stephanie Ericsson, Author of: Companion Through the Darkness, Inner Dialogues on Grief - Also available at Amazon.com


An Honest View into the Agony of Loss.   July 23, 1998
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Lewis journals the agonized philosophical wrestling with the lucid thought that earmarks his other writings. Having been a long time Lewis fan, I found this book strangly comforting when I lost my wife to cancer. His candid account of his journey through overwhelming emotional pain to a deeper spiritual commitment served as validation for my journey.


In his grief, C. S. Lewis finds a more deeply rooted faith.   June 9, 1998
 16 out of 16 found this review helpful

Lewis shows enormous honesty and courage as he writes in this little book, a journal expressing his grief, about his faltering faith in God after the loss of his cherished wife. Despite his lifelong career as a writer of the truth of Christian faith, in this journal he expresses doubt about the very existence of a God who would wickedly deprive him of the greatest gift of his life, his wife. But as the months pass after her death, and Lewis further examines himself, he begins to appreciate the degree of personal selfishness wrapped up in his grief, and in his raging at God. As a result, towards the end of the journal he reestablishes his faith in a much more deeply rooted way. For me, this little book was a cautionary tale. It illustrated how easy it is to have a faith that is not a faith, but rather a mere deception, a contruct made of intellectual effort. When the forces that hold up the construct are taken away, such as what happened to Lewis with the loss of his wife, the intellectual faith will vanish. It is only then that real faith can take root. For faith, to be real, can depend upon nothing but the faith itself: a faith in Jesus. God does us an eternal favor when he takes from us those things we would cling to that are other than Himself.


Honest and sincere   March 12, 1998
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Absolutely heart-breaking. I could almost feel my own heart break just reading the authors words. This man--a man who waited a long time to marry, but finally did in the later years of his life--must have had so many feelings wrapped inside of him when he wrote this book. He wrote fiction, fantesy, theology, apologetics, but this book represent C.S. Lewis, the person he was while here on earth.

The striking and almost embarassing sincerity of this book is what makes is so wonderful. I often read parts of this book over and cry, because it clearly illustrates our fragility as humans and how God comforts us in the midst of our pain. It's so good to see how the Lord worked in this man's life to overcome despair.