.11 What I'm Reading

It was another rough week over at the Heideman house. I am still catching up on work, my husband didn’t get home until after the boys were in bed most nights, the boys were recovering from strep throat, and Hudson had to stay home one of the days due to a bad cough. Such is life.

However, I did manage to read one small book by C.S. Lewis. Lewis’ writing is so comforting to me and serves as a balm to my soul on hard days.

Book of the week:

The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis

I asked for this book for Christmas as its content relates to a pet project I am working on. The subject of pain has fascinated me in recent years. It is so interesting how two people can go through very similar painful circumstances, and one person is crushed by the experience, where another will emerge feeling empowered.

I see these themes in fiction and non-fiction writing and have recently set out to research with the purpose of understanding the group of people that emerge empowered.

The Problem of Pain does not necessarily answer the question I ask in the above paragraph. Instead, it seeks to explore the age-old question, “If God is good, why do we experience pain.”

Though that question does not particularly bother me, Lewis did leave me to contemplate not the problem of pain, but the problem of goodness. If all we ever experienced was pain, and there was no concept of “a good.” Would pain even exist?

I was a sickly child. My ailments ranged from chronic sinus infections to cancer. However, I was never bothered by my sickness because I had no concept of what it meant to be healthy.

Now, as an adult, I am mostly well, and the occasional cold or sinus infection lay me out. I often wonder how I functioned as a child, as I rarely felt well. But the truth is that sickness didn’t affect me because I didn’t have a picture of health to compare to. Illness was all I knew.

And for me, that is where the problem of goodness comes in. I don’t ask, why is there pain. Instead, why isn’t there pain? How did we arrive at the idea that we should live in a world pain-free? For me, the answer is because there is something set in our consciousness that knows we were meant for more than a pain-filled life.

Anyway, this book gave me loads to think about. And I couldn’t go more than a few pages without having to put the book down to mull over what I had read.

I always recommend C.S. Lewis and am utterly biased toward any of his books. Therefore I am admittedly not a good reviewer.

That said, I think you should read this book.

Now, it’s your turn. Have you read C.S. Lewis? If you have, which books of his are your favorite?

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