Job | Not a Word
Say what you will about Job’s friends. It’s true. Once they started yammering, they wove their strands of talking points between what was true and what they only wished were true until it’s no wonder Job didn’t lash them all together with that rope and walk away, leaving them bound to discuss his plight amongst themselves into exhaustion.
But for seven days — an entire week — they held their knowing tongues and grieved alongside their friend in silence.
When they arrived, Job was in such emotional anguish and physical distress they did not even recognize him. This could no longer be the greatest man in the East. He was a blistered and scabbed shell of a man, the rhythmic scraping of his flesh with a shard of sun baked clay the only sign he was even still alive. (more…)
Medicate or Mourn?
I called my dentist and asked him if he could meet me at his office. He was kind enough to agree.
Yes, it was a Sunday morning. Yes, I left church just before the worship service started. But had I waited until the next day, regular office hours, that small area of swelling would have looked more like I’d sprouted a second head out of my neck.
Isaac’s elbow-plant to the right side of my face the night before during a tickle fight (this was several years ago) turned out to be well placed. It released to the surface the mysterious origin of two long years of pain and discomfort.
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