August 25: Of Grief and Guidance

Job 16:1-19:29

1 Corinthians 16:1-24

Pslam 40:1-10

Proverbs 22:1

It's only been a month, and four people whose families I know have passed on, leaving the families in inestimable grief. Had all the deceased been like my uncle - almost 80 years old, a full and joyful life behind him - the passing might have been easier to understand. Not so. The other three - one, a mother of two in her mid fifties, from an illness that gave her barely 8 months, her children in their teens; the other, a father in his early forties, who passed away suddenly, leaving behind a widow and three children, ages 6 and younger. And the most tragic of them all - a three year old little boy, a car accident, leaving a swath of heartbreak that cuts through parents and 4 year old sibling, aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and grand uncles and grand aunts…

When faced with tragedy, well meaning friends try to fix things. They try and provide comfort through reason, to find purpose in what happened, as if somehow that would ease the pain.

Today's readings suggest a different course of action. We are in the middle of Job. He's a good man who has served God faithfully. But for reasons Job does not understand, God has permitted the loss of all he holds dear -children, household, worldly goods, health. And the friends who started out supportive - they wept, tore their robes, sprinkled dust on their heads, and sat on the ground for seven days and nights without saying a word - these friends have not been able to help themselves, and have insisted God is rightfully punishing Job for sin. They thought a reason for what happened would make the pain easier to bear.

They weren't helping. Consider a sample of Job's response to them: "you are miserable comforters, all of you! Will your long winded speeches never end?" Job cries out "God has turned me over to the ungodly…[God] shattered me…His archers surround me…He pierces my kidneys". And they did nothing to change the truth - that his "hands have been free of violence and [his] prayer is pure".

In the end, where does Job try to find solace? From past conviction - "I know that my redeemer lives…and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God." His comfort is in the One whose thinking is beyond Job's understanding.

Today's psalm gives us the same counsel: "I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." Because the truth is, in times of indescribable grief, He really is the only one who can give comfort and help.

Father, when I am confronted by grief You will have permitted, remind me that You hear me; remind me to wait for You to answer me. And when I am faced with a grieving friend, remind me that I cannot fix, and that the best I can do is sit in sorrow with them and wait for You to answer their cry.