I've had a tough time all day dealing with the dream I had last night about Daniel. We were face to face. I touched him. I saw his tears. I heard the strain in his voice as he said, "Daddy, I miss you." That little voice has haunted me all day.

In my moments of extreme pain, I'm inclined to start doubting the goodness of God ... at least temporarily. I've gotten to a place in my life where I know He exists; I have no doubt about that. "For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:20 ESV).

As the great C.S. Lewis said in A Grief Observed, the real danger is not in ceasing to believe that He exists, but in believing horrible things about Him:

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, "So there's no God after all," but, "So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer." (Pg. 5)

Lewis penned those words shortly after his wife's death. (They had been married for only a little over four years.) I had read the book, partially, in 1998, and despite being a C.S. Lewis aficionado, it didn't resonate with me, so I quickly dropped it. Finally, when I was in jail I read the entire book in one night, and it moved me deeply. Lewis' grief was different from my own, but grief is still grief and pain is still pain. This time around, the book hit home.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep swallowing. (Pg. 1)

I'm not sure that what I'm going through feels like fear, though I can understand the connection. What I feel is a numb, obtuse pain, that frequently rises to the level of acute misery. I can live with the pain -- I feel God in the pain -- but I can't live with the misery. Thankfully, those moments where I "despair even of life itself" only happen every few days, but that seems all too frequent. Even in that pain, though, God is merciful. Still, in those moments, my mind and my heart can wander.

When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be -- or so it feels -- welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, 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. (Pg. 4)

Sometimes life feels like that.