Hey Job!

Hey there Job, got anymore of that sackcloth your wearing and could you move over a bit to let me sit in those ashes with you? Oh, I know you're going through a rough time. You've  lost your kids, your livestock, your wife is nagging at you to just curse God and die. I get it. I understand.  I'm about to be 48 years old and every child I have been blessed to carry has been taken from me before I could ever hold them in my arms. I feel as if I'm  about to lose it all because of my husband. While he hasn't said the words to curse God and die, I'm almost sure he would if he thought enough to. While you have your wife to nag and bemoan you, I have a husband that is indifferent but needy.

You are a righteous man, Job. Well spoken of and respected among your peers. I would like to consider myself in that same category.  You have worked hard for what you had and in a moments notice it was all gone. I feel that deeply. I have worked hard since I was a teenager, trying to make a home for us. I've worked multiple jobs when needed just to make ends meet while going without things that I desired to have.

Within the past two years, things have really begun to change. My husband that was all about church turned on a dime. He blames it on someone else without taking any look at himself in the situation and because of that, he has completely turned his back on God. Just last year, his health took a major turn where his kidneys failed and he had to go on dialysis, what we thought was a small sore on a toe becoming a below the knee amputation and ending the year with a detached retina. This has followed over into the new year with surgery to repair the eye being postponed due to his cardiac history and now prolonged issues with his post-op.

A needed two-income home down to just one, a spend happy husband that squandered his insurance settlement from the amputation and I'm sitting here questioning "Why God?"  I have mourned what should have and could have been and question God why am I having to go through all of this. Don't you care that your children is struggling?

Then I am reminded of Psalm 37:25 that says "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread." In these two years, we have not been without food at any time. Have things gotten tight a few times? Yes, undoubtedly there have been "cheap pizza" nights when it really was not what either of us wanted but for $1.25 a pizza we made do. 

I was recently able to use an inheritance to purchase a home for us. Within days of being in the home, the fear and worry of losing it began to take hold in my mind. As I've prayed and questioned God, so often the words of Matthew 6:25-34 had come to mind. Of course it's as a song that I learned but the same holds true. The scripture says "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." These birds have nests because God in His wisdom gave them the knowledge of how to build to protect their young. He provides the food and the water they need to survive. What many would consider a weed is clothed is beauty and splendor of magnificent colors and fragrance yet they are thrown away or burned as soon as themat beauty is gone. If God cares and creates a weed so pretty, how much more is He going to care for me as His child?

You know Job, on second thought, I think I'll see myself out.  While things may be tough, He has not forsaken me.  He has provided each step of the way and I know He will continue to make a way.