Job

My life is pretty good.

Oh, I have little hitches on occasion. My wrist splint, for example. Or perhaps how I’d like to update all the carpeting in my house and put wood floors in the living room and office, but I can’t afford it right now.

But overall, I have a lovely life. Bill and I are healthy, we have four wonderful children, three fabulous children-in-law, and those AWESOME grandkids about whom I am constantly bragging. We have a pretty house that is paid for. I was able to retire at an early age, and we can live comfortably off of our retirement income and Bill’s part-time legal practice. We have many good friends.

I guess like a lot of people, I take my good life for granted. But I was reminded about it last night in my Bible class as we read the Book of Job. Poor Job. Poster child for Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.

A few years ago, one of my good friends was going through a very bad time. She had a series of really bad things happen to her over a period of about a year – from very serious health issues to discovering her new husband was secretly using cocaine. She had two miscarriages. She lost two jobs. A cradle Catholic like me, she continually asked me, “Why is God doing this to me? I’m a good person. Why is he punishing me?”

I didn’t have very good answers for her, I’m afraid. I told her that God wasn’t doing anything to her. She was a victim of our own human-ness, I said. Her marriage was a bad choice. Her health issues were related to her smoking. The miscarriages – well, what could I say? I just told her that I was absolutely certain that God wasn’t sitting up in heaven and plotting out an unpleasant life for her.

My sister, much more of a biblical scholar than me, having graduated from the Catholic Biblical School, suggested I refer her to the Book of Job. Job’s faith in God was remarkable, to say the least. He loved God while his life was good, and continued to love him when his life went south. God ultimately rewarded Job for his faithfulness, just as He will reward us with eternal life if we are faithful.

Our Bible instructor, like my friend, has had a very difficult life. In addition to being diagnosed over the past several years with leukemia and uterine cancer, she also developed a life-threatening staph infection while in the hospital a year ago that has left her permanently disabled. Last night she spoke about how suffering brings you to a level of intimacy with God that almost nothing else can match.

Her life, a year ago, was on a second-to-second basis. She was so ill, she told us, that she would take a breath, and then she and her husband would thank God for that breath. After being blessed with recovery, she said she is closer to God than ever before.

I want to think that I don’t have to suffer that much to develop an intimate relationship with God. It is not easy. I get caught up in my day-to-day life, which is extraordinarily good, and forget to include God in every second.

I guess developing that closeness is another part of my Lenten journey.