Good Grief!

     Today, my bible reading took me to the book I have managed to avoid since all this began. Job. We all know his story. We all respect him. None of us desire to be him. He was a prosperous man. A man who was loved, cherished, and blessed by God. He was also a man marked by satan. A man who was presumed to honor and serve God because of the love and blessings he had received. Satan was given a free pass at Job- barring death. Fun stuff.
     The reason I have avoided it is because I can relate a little more to this man. Due to the nature of my life, I understand the feelings of loss. Grief. We spend so much time trying to avoid it. (Like I tried to avoid this book) Ultimately, it will find us. In some way, shape, or form. Today, I read Job...
      Something that I found quite interesting is that, long before the gurus and medical world, this book shows us the stages of grief. As I read the first chapter- everything is stripped away. Job's response is that of disbelief- shock even. In that shock, he is reacting and doing the things he knows. Forgiveness is easily given, God is easily trusted. He is in the first stage of grief. Denial. He is not able to see the entirety of his loss. He is not even able to understand the depths of his loss. That leads us to stage two. Anger. He is frustrated and angry at his friends (who may mean well but just say the wrong things), his wife (who just wants his pain to be over, and probably is grieving also), even at God. He is angry, but he does not sin. That takes him into stage three. Bargaining. He begs The Lord to remove the hand of destruction from his life. Stage four? Depression. Job wishes he had died with all that was lost. He wishes that he were never born. That brings him to the last stage. Acceptance. He realizes that God is God, he is not. He cannot change what has happened in his life. He must accept it because they are things "I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know".
      How funny! I know the word of God is alive. I believe it is able to comfort us and has all the tools to live in this world. I cannot begin to express to you how comforting it is when the living word of God becomes alive in your circumstances. I have been avoiding this book because I believed it would put a magnifying glass on my suffering and bring me back to a place I didn't want to go.  I would be like an ant under that glass, the book of Job being the sunlight that burned down on me and would surely consume me. How wrong I was! I am so blessed to see that God has a plan. Even in the midst of our own misgivings and skepticism, His word is powerful and will reach down into the depths of darkness and dispel it with the rays of its light. Like sunbeams on our face, His word brings comfort and joy. It is that life that propels us to keep going.