Hi Sisters,
Please see the first post on Job (click HERE) for how I am approaching Job and for an important caveat.
Bildad: Why are we stupid in your sight?
Tensions appear to be increasing! Zophar and Eliphaz have both spoken since Bildad’s last remarks in chapter 8. Bildad has heard Job’s assertions, calling them miserable comforters and worthless physicians, while also poking holes in their theology. Therefore, I can’t say I blame Bildad for thinking, “Is Job calling us stupid?” Bildad highlights what will happen (according to him) to the wicked person’s legacy and inheritance – that it won’t last.
Violence and Injustice
Job protests:
7 Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;
I call for help, but there is no justice.
8 He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
Not only did Job lose his livelihood, but he lost most of it (workers, oxen, donkeys, and camels), to injustice. If you read chapter 1, the Sabeans and the Chaldeans raided Job’s land. These groups stole his cattle and killed his workers. Violence descended and there was/is no advocate to pursue justice on Job’s behalf. There was no 9-1-1 to call and no police station to make a report. The story Job is telling himself: Injustice wins.
This hits me in many different places of my heart: from seeing injustice overseas due to sex trafficking to seeing the ways in which injustice has its grip in the United States. Do we sit with the pain of those who have experienced injustice? Do we grieve with them? What stories do we tell ourselves about the poor, the disadvantaged, the oppressed, the immigrant, and victims of violence? Consider what the Bible says about injustice and oppression. Seeking justice is near to God’s heart.
[For further reading, read Isaiah 1:1-17, Isaiah 58, Amos 5:21-24, Micha 6:8, Matthew 23:23. For an incredible discussion between Timothy Keller and Bryan Stevenson concerning justice and changing a particular narrative (aka, the story we tell ourselves), click HERE.]
For Job, justice wasn’t coming, compounding trauma’s impact. This brings me to the next thing that stood out to me . . .
All Have Become Strangers
13 “He has put my brothers far from me,
and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.
14 My relatives have failed me,
my close friends have forgotten me.
15 The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;
I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.
17 My breath is strange to my wife,
and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
18 Even young children despise me;
when I rise they talk against me.
19 All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me. . .
21 Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me! (Job 19:13-19,21)
Notice the words I bolded. Job feels thoroughly out of place even in the midst of loved ones, friends, and family. Maybe some of this is real abandonment/rejection. But for certain, trauma induces these feelings whether there is real abandonment/rejection or not. Please think deeply on that.
I am not a trauma expert, so I thought some excerpts from the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk would be fitting:
“You don’t need a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with strangers – but trauma can turn the whole world into a gathering of aliens. Many traumatized people find themselves chronically out of sync with the people around them. . .
In order to recover, mind, body, and brain need to be convinced that it is safe to let go. That happens only when you feel safe at a visceral level and allow yourself to connect that sense of safety with memories of past helplessness. . .
Traumatized human beings recover in the context of relationships: with families, loved ones, AA meetings, veterans’ organizations, religious communities, or professional therapists. The role of those relationships is to provide physical and emotional safety, including safety from feeling shamed, admonished, or judged, and to bolster the courage to tolerate, face, and process the reality of what has happened. . .
You have to find someone you can trust enough to accompany you, someone who can safely hold your feelings and help you listen to the painful messages from your emotional brain. You need a guide who is not afraid of your terror and who can contain your darkest rage, someone who can safeguard the wholeness of you while you explore the fragmented experiences that you had to keep secret from yourself for so long. Most traumatized individuals need an anchor and a great deal of coaching to do this work.”
Stunning and beautifully said.
Toward the end of Job 19, Job proclaims this famous line, “My Redeemer lives . . . after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” Incredible that Job had this knowledge of the resurrection given his time in history. But this will not be enough to sustain Job through trauma (we are only half way!). We know this famous line, but its context has much more emotional depth, not a fix-all statement for those in pain.
Let us be curious about our stories and others’ stories. Let us lean on safe sisters. As we learn from Job’s lived experience through trauma, let us become more and more the kind of sisters that offer others safety and bolster their courage on their way to healing from trauma.
Other resources:
By the River Together 