The One Walking in the Fog Beside Us

What C. S. Lewis has taught me about suffering and the love of God.

I cried in my home office with only the moon providing streaks of light for me. I lifted my puffy eyes and stared at the shadowy rows of textbooks, Christian living, and theology books that lined my shelves. In one hand I held the sovereignty of God, but the warm embrace with which it once held me now rattled around me like chains. In another hand I held the truths of eternal life and glory, but their dazzling gold streets seemed tarnished against the pain I felt. I recounted the words and phrases I used to comfort other suffering women before me.

God is with you. Feelings are finicky, and while God may not feel near to you, the Bible tells us he is. I crumpled those words like a sheet of paper. More questions raged inside me. If he is, where is he then? What meaning do promises of nearness hold as I weep alone in the dark, as a single mother all on her own facing unbelievable legal battles?

But my theologically savvy mind had more retorts for me. God is using this present suffering to sanctify you and cause you to cling less to the things of this world. I gritted my teeth together and crumpled that one as well. Is this truly kind discipline, Lord? Where’s your tender, fatherly care? And what good is all this suffering if it only makes me more bitter toward you and the church?

You miserable comforter! I cried with Job. Is there no end to your empty words? (Job 16:2–3). Only this indictment wasn’t meant for a group of heartless friends—it was against myself.

Despite my anger and confusion, I couldn’t reckon away God’s existence. Instead, I sat in the same place C. S. Lewis once found himself, after the death of his wife: “Not that I am in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’”¹

Where is God in our suffering? If he is not stopping it or protecting us from it, what is he doing? How can he claim to be our comfort and shield?

Lewis tenderly answers these questions in The Horse and His Boy. The little orphan Shasta, who has seen misery and misfortune, one after the other, sits upon a horse in the midst of an unknown land surrounded by darkness and fog. He has been raised by an abusive, hateful man; he has been chased by lions as he sought to flee his abuser; he has slept alone in the dark desert beside the haunted tombs; he now is alone in a strange land, unsure where he is and how he might find safety.

As he weeps, believing himself to truly be the most unfortunate boy in the entire world, another comes alongside him. A Lion, Aslan himself. “Tell me your sorrows,” the Lion says, and Shasta does. Once he tells of all his suffering, Aslan says, “I do not call you unfortunate.”

“I was the lion who forced you to join with Avaris. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”²

We learn that in every frightening and terrible moment of Shasta’s life, Aslan was there, working it for good. When he was journeying alone to Narnia, Aslan drove him to the little girl Avaris. When he was afraid outside the tombs, awaiting his friends to catch up to him, Aslan was there comforting him. When they needed to reach their destination quicker to beat the wicked king behind them, Aslan forced the horses to go faster. And when Shasta was a tiny baby on the edge of death, Aslan pushed the boat in which he sat to shore where a man was fishing.

And now, as Shasta felt the most alone and grieved, Aslan was there, walking beside him in the darkness. Shasta was never alone, never forgotten about, never in the hands of wretched fate. He was between the great paws of Aslan.

Tell Me Your Sorrows by Amy Grimes; used with her kind permission

Just as we are too.

God’s sovereignty may not work the way our hearts would like it too. We’d like God to barricade our lives from evil, set a hedge of protection around us. We’d like his light to keep all dark shadows at bay. We’d like him to change people’s hearts or stop their hands so they can never harm us. But that’s not how he works. He can’t work that way, not in a world of free will and sin. Instead, his sovereign hand moves much more powerfully, drawing all things to what is good.

Sometimes we may go from the darkest valleys, edge towards the green pastures and quiet waters, but then take a sudden turn back into the same valley we were in before. Despite how much we long for the gentle waters and green pastures, we may awake each morning to find ourselves still amid the darkest valley with no light streaming in from either end.

Our Good Shepherd walks with us through both the even, green plains and the dark, rocky gorges. He never grows more distant on either terrain but leads us with his outstretched arm and protects us with his staff. As he leads us, his ear is bent low to listen to both our gratitude and our lament. He says, “Tell me your sorrows.” And he never grows weary of hearing them—even if others do.

1. C. S. Lewis, “A Grief Observed,” in The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (1940; repr., New York, New York, United States of America: HarperCollins Publishers, 2017), 658.

2. C. S. Lewis, “The Horse and His Boy,” in The Chronicles of Narnia (1954; repr., New York, New York, United States of America: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004), 281.