It is a week to return to Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament For A Son.
(Actually that’s every week, but this week is also the singular week)
There is survivor’s guilt, and there must be griever’s guilt.
The circumstance of loss has brought insight and capacity for empathy that are appreciated by others.
While thankful for the ability to serve others more effectively, paradoxically, if the absence of these abilities meant that he was still here I’d choose him.
That the radiance which emerges from acquantiance with grief is a blessing to others is familiar, though perplexing: How can we treasure the radiance while struggling against what brought it about? How an we thank God for suffering’s yield while asking for its removal? But what I have learned is something stranger still: Suffering may be among the sufferer’s blessings.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament For A Son, Spire 1989, pg. 96-97
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