Day 8: From the Whirlwind He Speaks

For My Dear Sister & Family,

 

Trouble suffocates me. Worry entangles me. By night I can't sleep, by day I can't rest. The burden of suffering is intolerable. Where is God? Does He know, or are my prayers heard only by the wall? Is He near, or somewhere distant, only watching? 

Today feels like one of those days where the grief calls out to God demanding an answer.  Like Job, down to our whits end, we want a face to face with God, to explain to us why this is happening.  Is it me, was it something I did that caused God to punish us this way?  In agony we questions everything and anything, desperately hoping something will make sense in this darkness.  We feel like Job.  Job was blameless and upright, a man of such integrity that even God likes to show him off. If anyone deserves blessings, Job did. Yet one day God puts him to the test. Job's life falls to pieces; calamity of every kind descends upon him. Raiders sweep his fields; his livestock are captured or destroyed; his servants are put to the sword; a house collapses on his sons and daughters and kills them all. Disease strikes him, and he is covered with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. In all this, he submits patiently to God, only to be mocked by his wife, who tells him to "curse God and die!"(Job 2:9) 

Finally Job can contain himself no longer. In a torrent of grief and protest he demands an audience with God and in the end, Job gets his hearing. God answers from the heart of the whirlwind.  There are two amazing things about this encounter. The first is that God never explains to Job the reason for his suffering. The second, is that in His justice, God understands that this will seem unjust to us. He does not even try to give us "answers" that we could not understand. Instead, He visits us, as He visited Job. He is a better answer than any "answer" can be. Truth be told, nothing could make this seem or feel OK and He knows that.  And perhaps this is why He seems quiet.  Not because He does not hear us, not because we have done something to deserve this intolerable pain, but because He is enough.  Indeed, He is the only possible answer. We have all heard words that have felt like daggers though directed with the sweetest of intentions, explanations and justifications for whats happening that bring us no comfort.  And sometimes, the greatest comfort comes from a friend who says nothing but sits with us and lets us fall apart if only to keep it together.  His is answer sometimes is just to be quiet...but He is there.  Though we find ourselves buried in a deeper dark than night, from the midst of the whirlwind, He speaks.  I AM HERE.