NEW DREAMS (Job 6)

Where's the strength to keep my hopes up?
What future do I have to keep me going?
Do you think I have nerves of steel?
Do you think I'm made of iron?
Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps?
Why, I don't even have any boots!
(Ezra 6:8-13, MSG)

These days while going through Job may be difficult. I found a lot I could agree with in Eliphaz' first speech. How about "he gives firm footing to those sinking in grief?" When he said, "so the poor continue to hope," I felt like shouting amen! And I wondered briefly why God (and Job) got upset with his answer. A bit Romans 8:28-ish (I hate it when people quote that verse to me when I'm feeling down), but true, none the less.

But then Eliphaz listed all the good things happen to the righteous. They sounded like nothing bad ever happened to good people. Neither famine, war, gossip, loss of children--and on from there. He basically said, if Job was righteous, he wouldn't have suffered so severely. My heart screamed when I read, "You'll see your children grow up."

Job didn't like it either. His words that I quoted above put my feelings of deep sadness into words.

Before my daughter's death, the thing that saddened me the most was the removal of my son from my home when he was 15. When it became clear he would never again live with me, I felt such deep despair that I didn't know how I could survive it. Life didn't feel much worth living, but I knew I had an inner core of steel that kept me going. Of faith, of God, call it what you will. But I refused to give up on life. I lived in hope of the day that once I would have hope.

I bet we all have times in our lives when we ask, "what future do I have to keep me going?" I came name several such points in my life, which made me question the direction I had headed in. I had no future, at least not the future I had expected.

I lost the career I expected when I was kicked out of the master of music program at Southwestern Seminary. I went into Christian education instead, which was good. And God wasn't done with me and music, but in different ways.

I lost my dream of serving as an overseas missionary when my husband was kicked out of our last church. God instead has brought the world to me, and put in plenty of situations to share my faith.

I lost my dreams of parenting both my children to successful adulthood. With my son's arrest, I threw myself into writing. With Jolene's death, my writing career exploded.


I have questioned my ability to write with my continued health problems. So far, God keeps sending me the same vision: Yes, continue writing. But do it sensibly. Make smarter writing choices.

Each of those episodes sent into emotional whirlpools that dragged me under for awhile. Perhaps you're in a Job-like place right now, when you feel you have lost your hope for the future.

How about you? How have lost dreams led to a different future for you?

DEPTHS OF DEPRESSION (Job 3)

The worst of my fears has come true, what I've dreaded most has happened. My repose is shattered, my peace destroyed. No rest for me, ever--death has invaded life. (Job 3:25-26)

This is another tough one, about the fact that believers may When I read Job's complaint in chapter 3, I recognized the depths of his despair. They echoed what I experienced after my daughter's suicide. He had lost all ten of his children, at once, in a vicious attack--one that God had permitted, although Job didn't know of the conversation between God and Satan.

(Hmm, that brings up a question: How did the writer of Job know the story? Interesting question, but I'm not going to address it here.)

As they say about paranoia--sometimes the things they fear actually do happen. For those of us with children blessed with
good health, the death of our children remains an intangible, unreasonable fear. For those children who have deathly illnesses, for those children with severe mental illness, like my Jolene, death is a very real fear. My very worst fear, as Job expressed it.

I talked with a mother just today, who said her 21-year-old daughter is a schizophrenic who refuses to get help. Her fear that she might someday get a phone call like the one I received over five years ago was palpable.

You may have a different worst fear. But if it has ever happened to you, you know how Job was feeling.

His peace was destroyed. No rest. In many ways I have healed from Jolene's death, perhaps in most ways. But I can also trace a line of physical weakness beginning with that event. One symptom is difficulty sleeping on many nights.

Job wished he had never been born. I know that feeling.

This journey through Job will not be so much about finding an answer to the question, why does a good God allow evil? but an exploration of how to survive. The things that well-meaning friends will say. A few amazing statements of Job's faith. God's answer when it at last comes.

It won't be easy.

But it is part of God's word. Not only that, it's part of our lives, at least for many of us.

I'm looking forward to new insights into surviving our worst fears.Perhaps for me, it will bring a deeper level of healing. I pray it is so for others of us who have been there, or who are ministering to those in the depths.