Wife of Job is a sermon I preached in my rural congregations, imagining Job’s wife, as she dealt with her own pain, and her husband’s too. It is based on Job 2:9 and 7:11-21

Wife of Job

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse  God and die.” Job 2:9

(Sigh) (Dab eyes with cloth) How can you name a grief so deep? How do you describe a loss which not only devastates you, but tears at the very fabric of your being? How can anyone believe in a just and good God, when all of the fears you fight find their home at your lodging? It wasn’t just that one thing went wrong for us. I felt so incredibly helpless. There was nothing I could do to remove the pain. I would wake in the night time sobbing for my lost children.

Grief can either pull a couple together or  pull  them apart. Job and I took different paths in our grief. We had been living, what many would consider the good life. Our children were thriving. Our lands and animals had increased. When we walked in the marketplace or stepped out in the evening, we were treated with respect, honor and affection. I suppose, that each of us thought that we deserved the prosperity. Our holdings included seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred oxen. Our seven sons and three daughters brought joy to our hearts. We had it all, Job and I.

We were righteous people according to the standard of our time of being in a right relationship with God and with our neighbors. My husband was the greatest man in the East. We tried to help anyone we knew or met who was having trouble. I admit that Job was clearly more righteous than I. He was truly a blameless man. I think that is why I got so angry with him. If his goodness couldn’t protect us from devastating loss, than why keep believing in a God who didn’t appear to be anywhere nearby. You see, Job was a God-fearing man. He refused to compromise his values and beliefs. You would not find Job ever cheating a person out of their pay, or forcing extra hours on one of our servants. He insisted that each of them take a Sabbath rest, just like we did.

That’s why it was so difficult to live through the sudden turn in our lives. Priests had always taught that if we did what was right and good, we would prosper. We would be healthy. Wealth would accumulate at our feet. There would be no calamities. For most of our lives all of this appeared true. We were grateful for the gifts in our lives while also knowing in our hearts, we had done everything possible to insure that our health, our family and our prosperity continued.

Then one day everything we’d worked for was gone. Our children were dead. It happened so fast we didn’t have a chance to prepare, as if anyone could. Out of the Arabian Peninsula came the Sabeans who carried our oxen off. All our servants were killed, except for the one who escaped to tell us.  He hadn’t even finished telling us the story when one of our servants rushed to us with the news of a lightening strike hitting land where our sheep were grazing. The winds were fierce and fire swept across the grasses, swallowing both sheep and shepherds. We looked up to see one of our camel drivers running. Gasping for breath he told us that Chaldeans from south of Babylon had attacked and carried off the camels, killing all of the other camel drivers.  

Even while the desert wind continued to roar, a messenger cried out to us of the greatest ruin of all. Our children, our precious, precious children had gathered for a party at our oldest son’s home, when a whirlwind hit the building. The roof caved in and all died. My heart broke and something deep inside of me died that day. I cried out to God in all my pain, in the brokenness of our heart. I screamed at God and wondered how God could have allowed any of this, to happen. Did God care? Did we matter to the God we had spent our lives serving? Didn’t God know how good we were? Hadn’t God noticed how much we had given to others in their need? How could God do this to us? I wondered how God could be so cruel.

Job, though, Job didn’t cry out the way I did. Job’s was a different sorrow. While I screamed, he told me, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” I found that small comfort. If God gave, then why did God take away? Was I a terrible person, a bad mother? Had God decided I didn’t deserve to have children? And Job, what of him? This righteous man who had never harmed a single soul, why did he lose everything, when his whole life had been given to this God?

The ‘Why’s,’  echoed long in my soul. I had no patience with my husband. Did he have any concept of how my heart had just been torn apart? Any sense that this moment in my life was more than I could begin to make sense of. I buried myself in work. I avoided, “He of such faithful countenance.”  No longer did I find joy in life. The most beautiful flower couldn’t move me to appreciate it eloquence. Seeing an infant, sent tears cascading down my face. Memories were everywhere, each with its own silent accusation of my failure to protect my children. I saw their faces in the crowds only to discover, “No this, was not my child.” I breathed the scent of them in the markets. I heard a song sung the way a daughter sang, or a familiar shape of a son. Only each time that little flicker of hope was torn apart.

We had friends, but a friend’s arm around me came not only with concern, but also with admonishment that Job was not so righteous after all. Everyone said, we must have some hidden sin, or none of this would have happened to us.

So, in our deepest and most painful moments, instead of comfort, support and compassion, we were told it was all our fault. We were to blame for our children’s death. We had some great sin, neither of us were aware of, that brought the heartache and this horrendous grief into our lives.

Job got sick soon after. Sores, horrible sores covered his body. He was forced to live outside by the ash heap – the place where we threw our refuse . . . The place that burned day and night. Sores oozed their ugliness and trapped his pain. But, still no word of anger. No word of evil from his lips. No word of complaint from Job. How could he be so silent? God had betrayed us completely, led us to believe one thing, when the other way true. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I screamed at my husband to just, “Curse God and die!”

But even then, even then . . . he refused to sin against God.

We were drained emotionally, spiritually, mentally. Still,  a man like Job has his limits and finally Job reached his.

He cursed the day that he was born. He said, “I will not hold my peace.” Then he talked about the bitterness in his soul. When the sores came he couldn’t be free of physical pain.  Sleep did not relieve his pain.  Nightmares plagued both of us.

Maybe if the losses hadn’t come all at the same time, or if life hadn’t been quite so good before, we’d have been able to cope better. As it was, we had gone from one success, one honor to another. We had been gifted with health and our children as well.

When tragedies had hit others, we always assumed it was because they had done something to cause that tragedy. We’d known in our hearts they had messed up somewhere and if they had lived a righteous life, they would have enjoyed the same prosperity.  Yet, we were not without compassion, for people who were hurting.  If anyone was in need, we were there. We knew that our wealth was to be shared with the less fortunate.

For Job, that only way he could make sense of everything that had gone wrong, was to have a face to face with God. Job was a good man, a generous man, a righteous man. When we did talk, neither of us could begin to make sense of our lives. Job continued staying at the ash heap. Some friends stopped by. At first they were so distressed at his fall that they had nothing to say. But, then his friends, like mine, began to ask what he’d done wrong.

Job protested, and demanded a fair hearing from God, confident if he could just talk to God, like you and me, he could prove his case and his righteousness. It was then that he began to pour out his anguish, his bitterness. He questioned why God would test us so severely and punish us.

Once Job would enter a room and everyone would stand up from the youngest to the oldest, with reverence. Now he was a laughing stock, and I along with him. Children ridiculed him and tossed pebbles his way. I’d heard comments before about “How the mighty have fallen” but never did I believe we would be the ones. Gossip raged. I heard rumors about us that someone must have created in a demented mind. Stories about our losses, and how we deserved what had happened, spread across our village. Where were those we had helped out, to defend us? Even the slaves girls taunted Job,  as if he was a stranger instead of the man who gave them coins for sweets. Some of our old friends loathed us. So many turned against us in that time.

Meanwhile, we’d look around and see people who neither feared God nor loved their neighbors. They prospered, enjoyed their grandchildren, and didn’t deal with the daily hardship we encountered. They did not suffer the way we were. We wondered how they could be so fortunate in their evil, while we, who had done nothing wrong, suffered tragedy.

We needed to express our anger, our bitterness to God. We needed to ask the questions that were tearing our souls apart. When we had asked all the questions, slowly we began to see God in a new way. We had been taught that people who were good would be blessed with health and prosperity. Our very generosity would ensure our wealth. If this wasn’t true of God, then what was? In all of that time, Job never stopped believing in God. Not only believing in God, but believing in a God of justice, kindness and mercy.

Finally, when neither of us thought we could endure another day without some answers, God came to Job. There on the ash heap, with his friends still telling him he must have done something wrong, God came to be with us. We didn’t know why God didn’t intervene. God’s answer was to tell us that we didn’t fully understand the way of the universe. We were not God.

In the years which followed, we came to realize that it was never God who brought all that pain into our lives. Though God didn’t protect us from it, God was dependable. God kept faith with us. God was not angry with us for the hours of bitterness we spewed in our sorrow. God stood with us. Many turned away when our fortune collapsed, but God didn’t.  God chose to be with us instead. We would never understand the why. We would know the strength  God gave us.

We were able to rebuild our lives. Heartaches were replaced by new joys. It must have been God who turned the hearts of our brothers and sisters around. They came to our home and ate with us. They comforted us in our losses. Perhaps seeing our lives, had shaken their own sense of heartache. No longer did they blame us. Instead they chose to stand beside us.

Sorrow for our lost children,  always mingled with our new joy. Never again would we judge a person who was suffering. Our first concern was their pain and what we could do to help. When we heard others blaming a person for their losses, we were quick to stop the gossip. Eventually, we learned that God came to us, not to take our pain away, but to be with us in it. Sorrow teaches what the heart is willing to hear. We learned so much, yet I would never wish this teaching on anyone. That’s why I came to share my story. Perhaps you could learn from me.