Pleasant Inns

"...God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them."

"The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy... Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
-both quotes from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

While it certainly has made life more full this fall, I continue to be grateful for the seminary class I'm taking on C.S. Lewis currently. His reflections time and time again fit exactly with some of the things I've been thinking and feeling the last month or two as I struggle to get back to "normal life" while still grieving. This world isn't it, God has better for us... and yet, this is all we know so far, and it's normal for us to want to the "pleasant inns" to feel like home. Even more gut-wrenching for me is the stuff he says about the "happiness of our children". Any good and healthy parent must want their kids to be happy. But that happiness is never guaranteed by God.

While I miss Midi more, Nathan's death is almost the more difficult of the two for me. Every night when I tuck the kids in and they pray to Jesus, there's the constant tension for me of wanting every good thing for them here on earth and the constant reminder of Nathan that I have no ability to ensure bringing that about. Lewis' stuff isn't exactly comforting along those lines, but I appreciate the bigger picture. So even as I try to make the pleasant inns as comfortable, fun and as home-like as possible for my kids, and really shouldn't be doing anything less as a parent, keeping in mind the better home with God does help reconcile all the ways the inn isn't as great as I want it to be.