The Severe Mercy Summary and Analysis

Van reflects on moments that feel like eternity, that they are never perfect, always tainted by the pressure of time, and that man has never adapted to that constraint, but always resents it, tries to save it, and still can neither escape nor find it. Were we to recognize it as the state created for us to enable the process of coming closer to God, he surmises, the nostalgia we feel for the past might be replaced with a dedication to eternity. Time can be the corridor we pass through to get to our destiny.

Lewis addresses the necessity of time for allowing humans to learn and experience this life and about spouses and whether they continue to belong to one another in eternity. Instead, however, of seeking eternity for the sake of reunion with the lost...