Where do we turn in our grief to find comfort in the unexplainable losses we endure in life?

There are two titles by CS Lewis that I have commended frequently as a pastor to people journeying through the valley of the shadow of death: A Grief Observed and The Great Divorce.

“Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others… but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God ‘sending us’ to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE hell unless it is nipped in the bud. “

I am suggesting that social media has aided the multiplication of judgmental critics who do not operate out of a deep well of virtue and constructive concern. They are dangerous because they are destructive and lead others astray. 

What is worse, they even discourage the very people we need to declutter the path before us: the creatives.

Please don’t stop dreaming big dreams, God-sized ones.

But don’t allow the love of your dream to make earth a living hell for everyone else. No dream is so great that it turns a neighbor, a spouse, or even a child into an enemy.