My thoughts on Job
It is time to confess: I have suffered from a life long depression.
I am currently reading in Job in the Bible. Truly he feels bitterness at his “lot” that has fallen upon him, but his integrity stays in place. The Sunday School lesson was on Job yesterday. What a great lesson. It left quite an impact on me. It led me to remember how I, even up to just recently, have bemoaned my fate because of the depression that settles on me like an unforgiving jailer. I have begged Father in Heaven to release me for truly it is a dark prison with seemingly no hope for escape. I cannot see, in all my “pompous human wisdom” the value of the experience* yet, who am I to say there is no value?
*for in the full blown darkness of soul, my thoughts have “tinkered” with death, feeling surely it is preferable to life. I have been on that precipice many times believing life to be intolerable. My heart and soul racked with torment that I am no good fueled by “messages” perceived and real. There was no escape. I was lost in an emotional dungeon of the darkest kind. Like Job – I begged and pleaded with God to be released from life – I even toyed with that “power” myself – always remembering that while we have no recollection of the veil that so effectively blocks our view of the afterlife, it is there. Death is the vehicle that pulls us through the veil and then with added spiritual vision we gain upon arrival, we look back with new found perspective and then it dawns on us what we’ve done, (if we shortened our life,) and our sorrow is compounded as the realization sinks in that now there is nothing we can do to change that choice. It is forever marked in our “eternal life’s DNA.”
“Life flies on wings of lightning – we cannot call it back….”
This is true – how we choose to spend our moments will one day be revealed in the sum total of our lives when it is our turn to leave this existence.
But it is even truer when we choose to usurp God’s hand in our lives and partake of the death experience earlier because of emotional pain. We cannot take that choice back; it is permanent. I have bemoaned my fate of what I see as a life long battle with depression. However, who am I to complain when the Lord needs those lessons to teach me specific things I need to know and can learn in no other way?
It is true that He has been mindful of me and has lifted the darkness from my life. No longer, (at least at this season of my life) am I plagued with the feelings that I just can’t or don’t want to get things done. The feelings of “what’s the use?” have slipped away and receded far to the sidelines of my life. My despondency has been replaced by peace within.
The Lord has blessed me with this current reprieve. He has seen fit to bless me with peace of mind and hear and I am so grateful…
These thoughts are where I find myself as I read the pages of Job. He too, bemoaned his fate, but he is faithful to maintain his integrity because of his knowledge that God is good and knows what is right for us. His strength under pressure convicts me and makes me want to try harder. Alas, when the trials come, I must remember these things and put them to good use in rescuing my flagging spirits and faith. God is good. He loves us.
I am sure of these things.
One thing my depressions have given me is time to think about where God fits in all of this. What I have concluded is that he most definitely fits in. He is God – His is measured in his responses – Like the ultimate parent He is, He combines tutorials with love. (When we are not having a consequence for a choice we made,) He is there watching and waiting to see how we will do. Will we, like Job, “rent our clothes” and fall down and worship?
This action is not easy when you are human – in fact it can be downright difficult and I see it all too plainly in my own life.
It is when life is full of vicissitudes I must remember to “fall down and worship” But – what of the times when life is like a pleasant day at the beach? I am learning that when my life is in its pleasant moments, that I take the time to nourish the roots of my faith. It is during the regular moments I set aside to ponder, pray, and study the work of the Lord that my roots find their way t the fertile soil of the strength of the Lord.
Sometimes my efforts ebb and flow, but always they pay off when my world experiences darkness. Because of my work to draw close to the Lord, I have that fall back on when my life is less than desirable.
Refined and Purified 