A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy and Triumph

As Van wrestles with what it now means to be a Christian, he realizes that it is not so much a voluntary choice made wholly by the individual but a choice made in reaction to God acting first: “I did not choose; I was chosen” (101). As most of their friends were Anglicans, that was naturally the denomination where the couple found a home. Continuing to write letters back and forth with Lewis, Van and Davy relate how they have come to find true joy in their newfound devotion and conviction; after a short while, Lewis invites Van to dine with him at the college, formally beginning the start of a lifelong friendship. One of the main topics the pair often return to is the natural desire for God that resides in every person’s heart and expresses itself in many different ways (something Lewis had written about in his allegorical novel Pilgrim’s Regress).

That summer, Van and Davy relocate a mile or two southward, going from Summertown into the very heart of Oxford to a small studio apartment on Pusey Lane. And since “the Studio was central and, incidentally, on the way from North Oxford to St.