The Great Divorce rises near the top of my favorite reads and is nothing like I expected. A learned C.S. Lewis scholar recommended this allegory. Once I stepped through the narrow door of the bus, I thought of the passage in Matthew 7:14, “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (KJV)
This powerful and exciting journey toward heaven showed me the transformative power of God’s grace and judgment. Travelers relinquished the burdens and trappings that kept them inside an inferno of their own making, and readers get to watch. If the characters allowed God’s hand on the rein of their lives, He helped them overcome obstacles, choose heaven, and experience eternal joy.
My three favorite chapters (nine, ten, and eleven) made me think, laugh, and imagine. In chapter nine, Lewis meets George MacDonald, the author of Phantastes, who awakened Lewis’s imagination at sixteen. The Destroyer of Dreams, chapter nine, rang true of someone taking credit for everything and demanding control of people in their lives. Chapter eleven included a powerful metaphor of choosing to offload burdens in faith and a willingness to transform ourselves and the lives of the ones we love.
If you enjoyed C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, I think you’ll enjoy The Great Divorce.
