I have struggled the sermons and the thoughts others have expressed in regard to the story of Job. Especially when the sermons and thoughts judge Job and/or His wife harshly for the way that acted in the aftermath of the many losses they experienced. The Bible tells us Job was a blameless and righteous man who feared God. He was wealthy and had ten children for whom he continually offered burnt offerings. Job walked so uprightly that even God even viewed him as a blameless man. Because Satan claimed Job only feared God because of the God's blessings, God permitted Satan to test Job to prove Job's faith ran deeper than the blessings he received. To be honest, I still wrestle with this part of the story. I tend to get so focused on the here and now I can forget there is a battle being fought in the spiritual realm. Today I am focusing on the lessons we can learn from Job about grief.
When I first read the book of Job, I couldn't wrap my mind around the kind of loss Job and his wife faced. So, I read it from an intellectual viewpoint, focusing on the questions that arose over Satan and God's conversation, the conversations Job had with his friends, and the conversations Job had with God. It was not until one of closest friends suffered three losses--a miscarriage, a six month old, and a twin girls at six months in the womb, that I began to look more at the losses and emotions described in the book of Job.
I remember sitting with my friend during the funeral and seeing the anguish my friend experienced as the music began. I remember sensing her spirit calm when the pastor spoke, only to realize the tears were still streaming down her cheeks. I also remember her meeting me at the drive way a few days later and falling in to my arms as sobs racked her body. After her tears were spent and we were walking back into her house she said, "I know they mean well, but some of the things people say in the cards they send don't help!" At the time, we concluded that some people just don't know what to say, so they say churchy things and quote verses, some of which were taken out of context and most of which was truth my friend already knew.
It was after her loss that I began to challenge people when they put Job or his wife down. I can't even imagine what it is like to lose one child, much less ten children in one day. I can't imagine what it would be like to also lose all my servants (coworkers) and our lively hood in the same day. In addition, Job lost his health and was covered in sore's and boils as he sat in an ash pile grieving. Because he was the one plagued with boils, his hurting wife assumed some hidden sin in Job's life had brought this devastation upon them which was a common belief in their day. Her words, as biting as they were, were spoken in the anger of deep grief of a mom who had to stand over the graves of ten children on the same day.
Walking through grief with my friend who viewed me as a safe friend, allowed me to see raw grief in it's many forms. Sometimes the grief was expressed as a quiet sigh. Sometimes it came out in an uncomfortable laugh. Sometimes it was expressed through quiet tears gently streaming down the face, sometimes in tears shed only on the inside, and sometimes tears accompanied by shaking shoulders and sobs that could be heard throughout the house. Sometimes grief came out in loud angry words of protests followed by irrational bartering. And, sometimes grief came out in a declaration of God's goodness and love in the face of unbearable pain.
It has been over thirty years since I watched my friend bury her child. I have experienced some losses of my own and watched others bury husbands, children, siblings, parents, and grandparents. I also have learned that death is not the only cause of grief. Friends have grieved as they learned to care for their daughter who has suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. Friends who have lived courageously, grieve the health they once had as they repeatedly deal with cancer and chemo. Friends and family members are grieving as they continually deal with invisible autoimmune diseases and wake up tired to experience unexplainable pain everyday, These people whether they grief is the loss of a person or health or wealth, have had platitudes or unsolicited advice thrown at them.
I came to realize those who do this, do it for three reasons. First , they are uncomfortable with the pain they are observing in someone they love. Second, they say those things and offer advice because they are uncomfortable sitting in the powerlessness they feel in not having the ability to alleviate the suffering of others. Third, they offer advice like Job's friends did, because it gives them a false sense of security that by living right they could head off the kind of suffering they are observing.
Yesterday I was watching a Facebook Live by Todd Smith of Selah. He mentioned his song Broken Praise. I wasn't familiar with it, so I looked it up and found a video of Job set to the words of Broken Praise. It gave me chills, because for the first time ever I felt like someone had given honor to Job and the suffering he endured. The first two stanza's describe what my friend went through as she read the cards people sent her:
"If one more person takes my hand
And tries to say they understand
And tells me there's a bigger plan
That I'm not meant to see
If one more person dares to suggest
That I held something unconfessed
And tries to make the dots connect
From righteousness to easy street."
He goes on to say that he (Job) had the same assumptions that a man's honest life entitled him to an easy life. Then he askes God if He would hold him and stay with him so he can raise the broken praise to Him. Job also asks who else will see his suffering as an opportunity to educate and expose flawed theology and who would come along and try to tie up loose ends, hoping to sweep awkward moments from the room. Todd ends the song with acknowledging that God filled Job's cup and God emptied it and telling God that even if He never filled his cup and his story ends to just give him one more breath to sing Hallelujah.
I encourage you to go to one of the links below to see the video, hear the song, and read the words in their entirety. This song could help us all to learn to better respond to suffering. You and I will have to choose at some point how we want to respond to the suffering of others. We can either be like Job's friends, whose response was to debate and accuse, or we can do the more vulnerable thing of simply sitting with someone in their pain, holding them when they cry, and listening to their words as they grapple to make sense of the goodness of God in light of the pain they are feeling until their heart can offer praise from it's broken state. For broken praise is the purest praise of all.
Links to Broken Praise by Todd Smith:
https://www.worshiphousemedia.com/mini-movies/34529/broken-praise-the-story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6PP-YS-FqU&list=RDl2zHk95UnsE&index=1&fbclid=IwAR0ANn9RwhUunhSQBN4Dalv_6y-mESvCJM6XN
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