Job and Losing Children

Recently I read a poem as part of the funeral services for a girl who grew up in our congregation. Though she was nearly thirty when she died, my strongest memories of her are as a young teen. I have known the family for nearly two decades and watched the girl grow up. The event filled me with feelings and fears of loss.

Reading the poem was surprisingly difficult. I felt for the parents' loss, but the strongest feelings came because I couldn't separate the event from the possible loss of my own children. I was nearly wrecked emotionally. I have always lived close to my emotions and have only recently had urges to bury them or hide from them. Because my emotions tend to be on the surface, they do not usually surprise me, but recently, I have been startled by a rush of feelings coming from nowhere to hijack me. When I stood in front of the congregation, my old performance focus asserted itself, but for two hours before I began to read I was a sweating, heart-thumping wreck. After the funeral, I couldn't shake the malaise that set in.

Rolled into this was an e-mail from my oldest friend about the death of a young person from his congregation and the grief of the parents. The grief and loss put my friend in mind of Job. He mentioned this to the father of the lost child. The father responded that he hoped he was not like Job. My friend asked me if I thought Job had a good ending.

My first thought was, I don't know. Our Wednesday night class has been reading through Philip Yancey's book Disappointed With God, a topical study on spiritual alienation drawn from Job. I've given our study only fragmentary attention, but after the funeral, I went back, looked at Job, and decided I may have never given it any close attention. I remember reading bits and pieces; maybe I've even attempted to read completely through it in my personal study. Several years ago, I read the Bible in one of those congregational programs, Read Through the Bible in One Year. I'm sure I ran my eyes all the way through Job with some level of consciousness then, but I have no memories of the text details. So what do I know about Job? Perhaps I'm too ignorant to have an opinion.

I've had contact with the book; why do I not remember it? I've read about Job, heard my good friend preach a sermon on Job, and discussed the book with him before. I've been in the play J.B, Archibald McLeish's poetic dramatization of Job. (During rehearsals, when a question about the biblical source came up, i.e.: "Did Job's wife really tell him to curse God and die?" The director would answer--in this case, "yes"--and say, "It's somewhere in Ecclesiastes." At that time I couldn't remember anyone anywhere in the Bible saying, "curse God and die" and went digging through Ecclesiastes, to discover Job wasn't there; he's in Job). I've listened to other sermons from it, but didn't retain any comprehensive detailed knowledge, probably some kind of avoidance on my part. In fact, that may be the significant question. Have I been avoiding thoughts of Job for my whole life? I want to be God's man, but Job? He's not the role model that leaps to mind. The price he paid for faith was fearful. My petty struggles have nearly overwhelmed me. I'm afraid I couldn't be a Job. In that sense I'm like the grieving father, I hope I'm not like Job.

I do think Job has a good ending, but I think how good the ending seems to a person depends somewhat on their personal emotional perspective. One who has just lost a child may not wish to be like Job, mindful of the other things Job lost. Being like Job would mean many more losses to come.

There has been a time recently when the merest passing thought of losing my children, or my parents sent me into a heart palpitating panic. I was loss sensitized. The loss of Connie, our marriage, my family--at least as I had always thought of them; also, the loss of my life, as I had always thought of it. These losses were almost more than I could bear. They took me to the edge, where I remain, occasionally glancing into the abyss. The idea of more loss immobilized me. I could barely see through the loss I was experiencing. The prospect of further loss blanked out everything.

After a deep loss, one can't see through the grief and pain to any ending, good or bad, and the thought of further loss is unbearable. In my experience, strong emotion can blind one even to a visceral reality, can blind one to an obvious-to-others truth, and certainly can blind one to the intangible belief that situations will end well no matter how bad they look in the present. It's in this black pit that one encounters thoughts of suicide, the abyss below the blank grey future.

Then too the "good" ending of Job involves what appear, superficially, to be replacement children, "And he also had seven sons and three daughters." (Job 42:13) I have no problem with replacement possessions, but I feel no other children could fill the emptiness created by the loss of Phillip or Veronica. While other children would be their own blessing, at best they would be a kind of mitigation of heart damage, not a doubling of, nor a replacement of the blessings of being Veronica's and Phillip's father.

These are strong feelings and I'm afraid they exaggerate earthly experiences above their true status. To God, I'm sure, the earthly relationship of father/child is ephemeral, brief. So regardless of how I feel, the important qualities of the love I share with my children must be the eternal ones, and not those qualities and experiences dependent on physical, earthly proximity. I understand scripture to say our eternal relationships are most important to God. Compelling evidence of this to me is God sent his son Jesus to earth to be tortured and die at the hands of those in open rebellion to Him. It is my understanding this sacrifice was made so everyone could be reconciled to Him for eternity. It is my feeling that this sacrifice could only be made when the true verity is eternal love and not earthly physical associations. Sitting in a puddle of my earth spattered feelings I stretch to embrace the eternal qualities of love.

In his e-mail, my friend's final view of Job is precise, clear, and on target. As is frequently the case, he's a pillar anchored in bedrock and I'm a wood chip on the waves. He wrote:

In the end, God calls Job, "my servant." He said Job had spoken what was right concerning God. Job's brothers and sisters comforted and consoled him over all the trouble God had brought on him. Then God blessed him. I don't want to be noticed by Satan, but if a lot of bad things happen to me because I was noticed, I want God to say, "my servant."

This then is the good ending of Job: to have God say, "My servant." I think this would be a good ending to any task, experience, or even to a life.