Monday, September 27, 2010

Sea of Heartbreak

Back in the nineties, there was a family who was struggling. Unemployment issues, financial issues, health issues with one of the two children, friction between husband and wife. By the end of the decade, there finally seemed to be light. Full employment, financial needs turning the corner and best yet, successful treatment of the one child. Then the two children were killed in a car accident and the parents were horribly alone in every family's worst nightmare. I know this story first hand because it is my family and the children are my children. So, it's always with a sense of trepidation that I open the Book of Job.

Job is a didactic book, a teaching book. Whoever the author is, he nailed it. It is dead solid perfect when it works through the relationship of God and the suffering man. If you are suffering, take this book and read it and pray with it from beginning to end.

After all is said and done, Job encounters the Lord and finds that the Lord is the Lord. He is unchanging, no matter what happens to us. It is easy to read this and take it as God's indifference to us, but I can tell you it is exactly the opposite. When our children died, I found myself alone. Friends, posessions, career suddenly meant nothing. It was as if I found myself alone in a room, and the only one left with me was the Lord, who simply told me he'd been there all the time and would continue to be there all the time and would love me just as he always had.

As a resident of "Job-world," I will tell you that if you haven't suffered yet, you probably will. And if you have already suffered, there's no indication it will be the last time it will happen. I will also tell you that the presence of Christ is very, very real. You will never be alone.

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