C.S. Lewis

"Does God allow evil?" That is a question adults ask when bad things happen.

"Does God let bad things happen?" That is a question children ask when their worlds fall apart.

Born at Dundela Villas in Belfast on November 29, 1898, Jack Lewis didn't think about such questions when he was very young. The second son of Albert Lewis (a lawyer) and Flora Hamilton Lewis (a mother whom he adored), he was baptized by his grandfather, Rev. Thomas Hamilton, at St. Mark's on January 29, 1899.

For his first nine years, Jack Lewis lived a secure life. He and Warnie, his older brother, were free to play in the hills of County Down. The beautiful Mourne Mountains became the backdrop for their childhood imaginings. Later, Warnie said those same mountains were the backdrop for Jack's imaginary Country of Narnia.

Only three years after Albert Lewis built " Little Lea," a large home for his family just outside Belfast, Jack and Warnie lost their mother to cancer. The event shook Jack's secure world - and his childhood faith.

The great thinker and writer had to struggle early with a profound question: "Does God allow suffering?" (If not, how can a nine-year-old boy lose the mother he loves and needs?)

Jack Lewis wasn't able to reason through the answer to that important question until many years later.