Darkness and Doubt
Above all, there was a sense of distance from God, what the sixteenth century Spanish monk John of the Cross called the ādark night of the soulā or the sense that the āheavens were like brassā bouncing back any prayer sent heavenward. Lewis says,
But go to Him when your need is desperable, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside. After that, silence.
Worse than that, there were doubts about the goodness of God. It wasnāt that Lewis was in any danger of becoming an atheist: āThe real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, āSo thereās no God after all,ā but, āSo this is what Godās really like. Deceive yourself no longer.āā
---I can't just leave it there
This smashing even applies to some of our questions. Some of our questions are unanswerable, at least in the way we ask them. Lewis says:
When I lay these questions before God, I get no answer. But rather, a special kind of āno answer.ā It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, āPeace, child; you donāt understand.ā . . . Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we askāhalf our great theological and metaphysical problemsāare like that.
---
It is hoped that these insights might be helpful, although I am aware of the dilemma Lewis described in The Problem of Pain:
All arguments in justification of suffering provoke bitter resentment against the author. You would like to know how I behave when I am experiencing pain, not writing books about it.
When we all experience pain, a little courage helps more (Lewis observes) than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.
https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/c-s-lewis-on-grief/