Tag Archives: Job

Comforting Someone in Their Grief

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Reflecting on a tragedy in my life – losing a lifelong friend to suicide – became my first devotion published by The Upper Room. It was gratifying for me in three ways:

  • My first publication of a devotion, a form I enjoy writing.
  • Being published in a devotional I remember my mother reading every morning during my childhood.
  • Knowing God could use my personal and painful experience to create a closer relationship between him and his followers, and to show them how to love one another as he has loved us.

During the trying times we all face, it’s important to remember how much we and others are grieving various losses. It’s important to remember what people really need in their grief.

Image result for job and his three friends

A Gentle Presence

“When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was.” Job 2:11-13

“There is a time for everything…a time to be silent and a time to speak.” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1,7

My dear friend since childhood had lost her brother to suicide. Although I had the opportunity to see her briefly the weekend of his death, our communication became one-sided once she returned home. Over the following years, I left a few telephone messages until her number changed. I sent three or four letters with news from home and the annual Christmas card. But her grief was deep; she was non-responsive. I prayed for her and for wisdom but let her grieve with no pressure.

Jewish custom calls for “sitting Shiva” during the first seven days of mourning. Traditions also asks mourners to refrain from unnecessary talking and allow the bereaved to initiate conversation. In the story of Job, the arrival of his three friends reflects this custom. They remained silent until he began to speak on the eighth day.
When nearly seven years had passed after her brother’s death, my friend called me. All that time, I had wondered if I was doing the right thing. (Did I write too much? Not enough?) But after years of silence she called and said, “Thank you for being a friend when I could not be relied upon.”
 
Lord, teach us how to be present with those who need comfort, when to comfort with silence, and when to comfort them with words. Amen.
 
Thought for the day: We comfort others with our presence.
Prayer focus: Families of those who choose suicide
 
Previously published in The Upper Room, 2006

The Patience of Job

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When I was growing up, occasionally I’d hear my mother refer to someone as having “the patience of Job.” I went to Sunday school and then upstairs for ‘big church’ with her, but we didn’t learn about Job in Sunday school.

Our flannel graph stories revolved around stories that didn’t include Satan, for the most part. You know, Joseph and his coat; Noah in the ark; Moses with the burning bush; that little guy Zacchaeus; and the loaves and fish miracle.

Now that I know Job’s story, I still enjoy reading it even after years of study. The more I learn about patience and how God works, the more I learn not to pray for it. A friend once shared in a group which I belonged to that she had prayed for patience.

“God didn’t send me patience in a package tied up with a bow,” she said. “I got pregnant.”

That’s a funny line from my friend. But I don’t believe God was playing a joke on her. What I do believe is that God uses our circumstances – the ones he causes and the ones he allows – to help us grow in character and in virtue (among other reasons).

Job grew from his experiences of loss and from the aftermath. He also learned some things. I don’t know if it was patience he learned. But I do know he grew in his knowledge of God.

“The theme of (the book of) Job is not ‘Why do the righteous suffer?’ The theme of Job is ‘Do the righteous believe that God is worth suffering for?’” ~ Warren Weirsbe

“They (Job’s three friends) plead a poor cause well, while Job pleads a good cause poorly.” ~ John Calvin

 “Be silent about great things; let them grow inside you.” ~ Baron Friedrich von Hugel

“The book of Job is not strictly a pessimistic book. It does not despair of the universe, despite all its sorrows. What it does despair of is the adequacy of any one of man’s theories, or all of these theories united, to furnish a solution of its sorrows.” ~ George Matheson

“I had a million questions to ask God: but when I met Him, they all fled my mind, and it didn’t seem to matter.” ~ Christopher Morley (Job 23:3-4)

While we read the book of Job, we get to see what happened behind the scene. But Job had no knowledge of it. We can be assured that God works for us in unknown ways and what may look like a setback becomes the setup for a blessing if we trust God and remain faithful.