Sitting with Job

I am off Lectionary this week and next as we are in the middle of a Stewardship campaign. But I have been reading the lectionary texts for this week and one, in particular has struck a chord:

“O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!" Job 19: 23-27

I haven't done much study on the text, but on the surface I recognize a painful longing to believe in the hurting heart, what is known in the logical mind. Job knows that "my Redeemer lives"...but if only those words could be written down...concrete...certain. If only in the midst of pain and confusion, the heart could feel with great confidence the hopeful promise the words hold.

I read the passage from Job and felt like I was sitting with him--in a moment in time where things just don't make as much sense as I'd like them to. I have gone public about the fact that I had an early-term miscarriage in September.

Now in my head I say, "it was early...it was better this way...at least we didn't have to make hard decisions down the road." If only those words could be written down...concrete...certain. If only my heart could feel the same way.

As a pastor, I'm not really sure what to do with my own grief...how much to share...where to cry the tears. I have fallen back on my default of listening and playing music. It is a way of praying and being in the presence of God that is beyond inscribed words. The music helps me to feel that hopeful promise that "my Redeemer lives" and, somehow, so do all of the loved ones and hopes and dreams that we have lost in life.

Journey On...