A Severe Mercy

This is one of those life-altering books that influence the way you think, forever.

To describe it as merely a romance is too simplistic. This is the story of a man and a woman who fall passionately, obsessively in love with one another... and eventually, how they fell in love with Christ.

The wife threw herself wholeheartedly into her new Christian life. She lived and breathed for God.

And so did the man, but it was for HER sake that he did so. For the man loved his wife more than he loved God...

And God, in His infinite Wisdom, took her from the man when they were both still very young, and very happy in their love.

The second half of the story is how the man dealt with the death of his beloved.

C.S. Lewis wrote to him thus: "... One way or another the thing had to die. Perpetual springtime is not allowed... You have been treated with a severe mercy. You have been brought to see... that you were jealous of God. So from US you have been led back to US AND GOD; it remains to go on to GOD AND US. She was further on than you, and she can help you more where she now is than she could have done on earth ... Do not avoid... the travail you must undergo while Christ is being born in you."

Beautifully written, the book has something for everyone.

For those seeking tips on how to have a beautiful relationship, the chapter entitled The Shining Barrier provides better guidance than most relationship manuals out there. Some excerpts:

"The Shining Barrier -- the shield of our love. A walled garden... The Shining Barrier -- we called it so from the first -- protecting the green tree of our love.

But why does love need to be guarded? Against what enemies? We looked about us and saw the world as having become a hostile and threatening place where standards of decency and courtesy were perishing and war loomed gigantic. A world where love did not endure... It must be that, whatever its promise, love does not by itself endure. But why? ...

... The killer of love is creeping separateness. Inloveness is a gift of the gods, but then it is up to the lovers to cherish or to ruin. Taking love for granted, especially after marriage. Ceasing to do things together. Finding separate interests. "We" turning into "I." Self. Self-regard: what I want to do...

We raised the Shining Barrier against creeping separateness, which was, in the last analysis, self... We began immediately... to live by the principle of sharing.

We decided that each of us must read every book the other had read, and we did so... Our thesis that if one of us liked something there must be something to like about it which the other could find was proved again and again. And sharing was union. More and more, as I read her books and knew her music, she was in me and I in her; and so for her: the co-inherence of lovers."

There is also beautiful poetry to be found in the book, written by the author for the most part.

The chapter Encounter With The Light is full of intellectually sound arguments for the case of Christianity, made even more so with the inclusion of letters from C.S. Lewis, whom the author and his wife befriended during their stay in Oxford.

In the end came acceptance, and so the author said:

"I choose to believe in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost -- in Christ, my lord and my God... Choosing to believe is believing. I confess my doubts and ask my Lord Christ to enter my life. I do now know God is, I do but say: Be it unto me according to Thy will. I do not affirm that I am without doubt, I do but ask for help, having been chosen, to overcome it. I do but say: Lord, I believe -- help Thou mine unbelief."

I already mentioned that the latter part of the book deals with bereavement. I foresee that I will reread this volume in the years to come, to glean strength from the gems of wisdom and penetrating insights in the nature of loss to be found within its pages.

I really cannot recommend it highly enough. What a great find! To think I just happened to see it while browsing one of the bookshops in U.P. :)  One never knows what treasures lie hidden beneath the stacks of thrillers and romance paperbacks.