Lessons from Job

Five months in, and 2024 has been the worst year of my life. A water heater leak, a tree on our house, and the death of not one but two of our cats, one of them less than four years old and the other less than 6 months old.

The first blow, the loss of our dear friend, was by far the most painful. After all, half my heart was put into the ground. The night we wrapped him in blankets and said goodbye, I sobbed my way through a barely-coherent rendition of Blessed Be Your Name in the shower. Because I’ve read Job, and shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?

The next blow, not a full month later, was a stressful inconvenience with a dash of HGTV thrown in. You hate to spend the money, but at least the new carpets look great.

Then, another month, another blow – another devastating loss – and I started to theorize about this dogpile of sorrow.

And after the fourth, it’s confirmed: we’re in our “Series of Unfortunate Events” era.

Now, it’s May. And my heart is holding its breath, waiting. Waiting, and asking:

What’s it going to be next, God? What else? And while I’m here – what gives? What’s going on? Are you making deals with Satan up there? Could you please stop? Did I do something wrong? Have I been wanting too many things from too many of the wrong places? What am I supposed to learn here? If I learn it fast enough, can I prevent what’s been planned for months May through December?

            I’ve read Job, and yet here I am, just begging for a whirlwind.

But I do have questions concerning 2024. By the grace of God, I’ve been less interested in their answers than I am in their source, and I have, actually, learned something:

My questions come from a fear that, somewhere in me, there’s a threshold, one irrevocable once crossed. A fear that I can survive the loss of our cats, and I can survive a tree on our house – but one day, after enough loss has compounded, I will not be able to take anymore.

On that day, time will cleave in half. On one side will be who I was up until that point; on the other, a faithless void.

I ask God, What else? because I want to brace my heart against the deluge. If I can know now what’s coming later, I can be prepared, and if I can be prepared, I can continue to hold on.

I beg to know the future, because I am afraid. I thought at first I was afraid of the pain, which is daunting to be sure. But I think, in fact, I am more afraid of losing my faith to the whirlwind. Because, without faith, there is no point – not to life, and certainly not to pain – and that is a reality that cannot exist if I am to keep on moving in this life.

I’m afraid I am currently white knuckling my hold on faith. I’m afraid that my life, here and eternally, relies on my ability to cling to the rock – and, in some ways, that sentence feels silly, obvious, like, Of course your life relies on clinging to Jesus.

But it’s terrifying to feel that my salvation comes down to grip strength. Terrifying that every ache and inconvenience threatens to loosen my hold. It’s why everything has to be perfect – the house must be clean and organized and well-decorated, and our pets have to be healthy and here, and we have to be healthy and happy, and we have to love our jobs and earn enough money for the things we need and the things we want and the people we want to help, and we need the perfect group of friends that support and encourage us without developing a codependency, and as long as all these things are in place, then I can endure anything He throws my way.

Everything must be perfect, because the slightest pebble on the cliff face that is Faith runs the risk of making me fall.

I believe now, but what if I change? I believe now, but what if life weighs me down until I slip? I believe now, but Lord, how do I know I’ll have the strength to hold on to you for the rest of my life on earth?

Out of the whirlwind of my heart, I know the answer:

            I don’t – I don’t know, and I don’t have the strength.

            And – praise God – I don’t have to.

Because faith is not the precipice – it’s the river roaring miles below. Faith is not a free solo climb – it’s a walk to the shore. Faith is not something to climb to the top of or die trying – it is the water waiting, and it is the letting go.

This, finally, is what it means to give up control. It doesn’t mean I stop steering my life, doesn’t mean I no longer pick which coordinates to chart, doesn’t mean my only job is to be a passenger to God’s driving.

No, giving control to God means letting go of the illusion that I am, in any way, capable of bracing myself against the impact of living.

I can cling to a rock of my own making, or I can let go and fall into God’s living embrace. Fall into it and become part of it, flexible and resilient, no longer bone or stone that breaks when bent, but water – expansive, flowing, alive, and free.

One watery grave grafted me into the body of Living Water.

In it, I am, over and over, baptized in the waves of His unchanging love.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8: 38-39 ESV

–Carrie Davis