Am I Enough – No Peace in my Pain

Greetings Dear Reader,

I know I said it a couple of days ago but I repeat it here for the sake of context.  Job has done nothing wrong.  He is blameless and upright.  In light of that context I wonder if we can really listen to him emote his pain.  His children die.  His wife tells him to curse God and die.  He loses his wealth, his possessions, and his health.  The most influential man in the Middle East has come to utter ruin and he has not done anything to deserve it.

His response to all of this is to sit in the ashes and scrape his boils with a shard of pottery whilst waiting for God.  He has friends.  They come and sit with him.  They wait for seven days in silence.  They want to speak to him but are respectful of his silence. 

Job finally speaks.  After a week of sitting silently in the ashes of his life, grief, and pain he laments that he ever existed.  He is a good man come to trouble and in his pain he wishes he never existed.  It is so hard for me to see those I love in pain.  I am a fixer and when I cannot fix things I must battle my own pride.  This robs me of the compassion necessary to be truly there for those who need me.

My Son Maxim is in so much pain over Raven leaving him.  I feel so helpless.  He reminded me of real perspective.  A mutual friend Will has been suddenly diagnose with stage four colon cancer.  It is an incurable verity.  He is a young father with a beautiful family.  Maxim and I visited Will in the hospital yesterday.

Maxim, in the midst of his pain commented that his troubles seemed like nothing in comparison.  I see his pain and as a father it devastates me.  I am dealing with pain of my own.  It is in the broken hearts that we find the courage to care for each other. 

When I am helpless I must look at Job.  My pain is nothing compared to his.  When he is devastated he waits for God.  He is honest about his pain with his friends.  He maintains his faith and his integrity.  Even on the edge of his pain and loss he waits for God to speak. 

I have seldom read anything is raw and honest as the third chapter of Job.  He is honest and open with his friends.  Just when you think things will not get worse for Job his friends speak.  Tomorrow we will walk with his friends as they offer their counsel.  I know I will get angry again.

The Edge – Michael Card 

Most of us will never know

How dark this world can seem

When life becomes more nightmare than a dream.

So to all of you who have survived

A visit to the edge,

I trust that you will understand this pledge.

I promise I will always leave

The darkness for the light.

I swear by all that's holy

I will not give up the fight.

I'll drink down death like water

Before I ever come again

To that dark place where I might make

The choice for life to end.

I've found that as I travelled

Through the inscape of my land

That mountaintops make valleys in between.

And when that nameless sadness

Like a cloud comes over me

I look back on all the brightness I have seen.

I promise I will always leave

The darkness for the light.

I swear by all that's holy

I will not give up the fight.

I'll drink down death like water

Before I ever come again

To that dark place where I might make

The choice for life to end.

I realize that though my world

Might seem so torn apart,

Most often it is joy that breaks the heart.

And that I am the richest man

Though I must beg for bread,

For the very One who might condemn

Has called me friend instead.

I promise I will always leave

The darkness for the light.

I swear by all that's holy

I will not give up the fight.

I'll drink down death like water

Before I ever come again

To that dark place where I might make

The choice for life to end.

I will always leave the darkness for the light.

I will not give up the fight.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."

Job 3:1-26

After all this, Job finally opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born. Job said, "Scratch out the day I was born and the night that said, 'A boy has been conceived!' That day- let it be pitch-black. Let God above not even care about it. Let no light shine on it. Let the darkness and long shadows claim it as their own. Let a dark cloud hang over it. Let the gloom terrify it. That night- let the blackness take it away. Let it not be included in the days of the year or be numbered among the months. Let that night be empty. Let no joyful singing be heard in it. Let those who curse the day (those who know how to wake up Leviathan) curse that night. Let its stars turn dark before dawn. Let it hope for light and receive none. Let it not see the first light of dawn because it did not shut the doors of the womb from which I came or hide my eyes from trouble.

"Why didn't I die as soon as I was born and breathe my last breath when I came out of the womb? Why did knees welcome me? Why did breasts let me nurse?

Instead of being alive, I would now be quietly lying down. I would now be sleeping peacefully. I would be with the kings and the counselors of the world who built for themselves what are now ruins. I would be with princes who had gold, who filled their homes with silver. I would be buried like a stillborn baby. I would not exist. I would be like infants who never saw the light.

There the wicked stop their raging. There the weary are able to rest. There the captives have no troubles at all. There they do not hear the shouting of the slave driver. There you find both the unimportant and important people. There the slave is free from his master. "Why give light to one in misery and life to those who find it so bitter, to those who long for death but it never comes- though they dig for it more than for buried treasure?  They are ecstatic, delighted to find the grave. Why give light to those whose paths have been hidden, to those whom God has fenced in?  

"When my food is in front of me, I sigh. I pour out my groaning like water. What I fear most overtakes me. What I dread happens to me.  I have no peace! I have no quiet! I have no rest! And trouble keeps coming!"