Job’s Lament or The Good Old Days!

I have never allowed myself to indulge in “I wish I were back there” thinking. I don’t even say those things out loud.  Perhaps I am afraid of the grief or depression that might come on me if I did.  Or maybe I don’t want to depress other people!   At any rate, I discovered today that Job did it.  In Chapter 29 I read:

“How I long for the months gone by,

  For the days when God watched over me,

When his lamp shone on my head

  And by his light I walked through darkness!

Oh, for the days when I was in my prime,

  When God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,

When the Almighty was still with me

  And my children were around me,”

So I will say this once  I wish for the days when my house was full and my schedule was full and I could scarcely get a moment to myself.  When I went to church often and participated in whatever groups I wanted to and sometimes led them.

I guess I thought that my life would just go on like that, getting better and better.  Job did too.  He said:

“I thought, ‘I will die in my own house,
    my days as numerous as the grains of sand.
My roots will reach to the water,
    and the dew will lie all night on my branches.
My glory will not fade;
    the bow will be ever new in my hand.’

But disaster struck.  I was betrayed on a gargantuan scale.  I suffered in ways I had never imagined before.  I was brought to my lowest.  Brought to where I could no longer care for myself--physically, emotionally and financially,  If not for God, I would have had no hope.  Like Job, I lost everything – or almost.

Was I struck down because of my own sin?  No. Unless being deceived is a sin, and I don’t see that in the Ten Commandments -- “Thou shalt not be deceived!”  That’s like saying it is your sin when someone else sins against you.  Ridiculous.

Yet I was left alone – accused and abandoned.  So, like Job, all those questions about “why” and “what now” apply.  But I have the benefit of reading Job’s book, so I know how his life turned out.  And I also have the cross and the Resurrection.  So even without seeing restoration and restitution on this earth, I would have real hope for an eternal future.  

But all that does not erase the losses, does it?  It’s OK to count them once in a while

So, would I REALLY want to go back?  Sort of yes and sort of no.  ‘Yes’ because I loved being a mom and caring for my children. I loved being married and going on dates.  I loved teaching English and leading Bible studies.  But ‘No’ because I don’t have the strength to do all those things now! And also because I’m aware that there was a lot of bad going on as well as the good.  I definitely don’t want to relive the bad parts!  And you can’t pick and choose the parts of life you want to keep.

So, even though I miss some parts of “the good old days,” and even though I hope from the bottom of my heart that some of those longings will be fulfilled again, I don’t really want to go back there.  It was not perfect, just as my life now is not perfect.  All in all I’m happy and I have a lot to be thankful for.

REALLY.

(How about you?  Can you do without "the good old days"?)