Hi, I'm rather new here and am unsure how to use the "quote" feature, so I'm just going to cut and paste; please excuse my ignorance.
I think Carol made a most valid point:
(quote) "It's important to realise WHY Susan was written this way.
Lewis knew that this is what happens to real people - for various reasons, they turn away from a faith experience and deny it was ever true. They laugh at others' continuance of faith and Christian walk, declare how enlightened and mature they themselves are, and fill their lives with things that are interesting or even valid but should not take the place of knowing God.
Most Christians know someone who has done this - and when that is someone close to us it is sometimes heartbreaking.
But Lewis gives hope, as he indicates that she is still alive, and therefore still has the same chance to come back to faith as any other person alive in England." (end of quote)
A dear friend of mine had a son who received Christ as Savior at an early age. He seemed to have it all together all through high school, working with younger children through our church's youth ministry and as a junior counselor at a Christian summer camp. He even spoke of going into the ministry. Then he went to college. For the first time, he met people who not only disagreed with Christianity, but who were openly hostile toward it; unfortunately, some of these people were his professors. He found himself ridiculed, verbally assaulted, even given lower grades in some classes. His parents watched him change from a happy, Christ-like youth into a cynical, bitter young man who scorned their beliefs and even tried to influence his siblings toward his way of thinking.
I remember his Mom saying that her only hope lay in Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." They had faithfully followed God's Word in raising their son and they believed wholeheartedly that he would someday return to the faith he had embraced as a child. I am happy to say that he did and, at age 46, is now serving the Lord in an outreach ministry. He went through great pain and loss during the years before arriving at this place, but God has taken the bad and used it in shaping a humble spirit and a servant's heart.
I like to think that, perhaps, the same happened to Susan.
"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." - The Last Battle
"Even so, come, Lord Jesus." - Revelation 22:20