House of Cards

            I went to the Lakeview, Roselawn and Tiger Flowers cemetery complex for this fieldtrip, and I stayed there for some time, although I am not sure if it was quite 40 minutes or more as I was focused on my surroundings.

            I went to the graveyard at night, simply because thoughts seem louder in the dark. I figured the graveyard would feel a little bit eerie, but not much more. But, the very moment I started to look around, it really sunk it that all of these people have massively complex stories. They likely all left people behind when they died. Many of them are in Hell. Many people still alive are letting their memories agonize them.

            The most direct tie I made between the cemetery and A Grief Observed was the fading of memories, or the symbolic replacement of a person. The tombstones had small snippets and excerpts of a life on them. Assuming I die before Christ returns, I will one day have a symbolic stand to mark my life as well. Wild.

            In the last two chapters of the Lewis writing, several things hit me hard. Two things hit me the most. First were the painful requirements of God’s goodness. If God does not purify us by fire, He is not good. Suffering is the only legitimate way to become better. Like Lewis said, if He were not wholly good, He may relent before we are made into what we need to be. Praise God for His goodness, but fear Him for what it implies!

            Second was the house of cards illustration Lewis kept using. I believe my entire Christian faith is a flimsy and potentially useless in its current state. Why do I believe what I believe? Do I bend Scripture to mean what I think it means? Do I take the great commission of Christ seriously? Am I absolutely, completely and wholly wasting my life in a house of card while I ignorantly and arrogantly beg for God to knock me down? I’m afraid to consider these questions, and my fear gives me the answers.

            How terrifying is it to ask, but I do: God, please tear down my house of cards. Destroy whatever I’m allowing to hinder me from serving You as fully as You wish. Indeed, it is simple to ask for all the suffering and pain I need to become a new man, but it is much simpler to spend my life fighting the effects of the answered prayer, and resisting the call. Further I beg that I respond. I have no will to do this of my own, so I ask: Tear me down. Completely and seriously. Then give me the wisdom and bravery to be built up in you.