Job Says the Sad Words Out Loud

There was a man named Job. And once, he had everything.

Then, in only a little while, it was all gone.
His sheep. His house. His children.
His health, down to the skin.

Only a little while before, on the day the sky fell,
Job had bowed down low and said,
"The Lord gives. The Lord takes away."
But brave words and sad words can live in the same man,
and now the sad ones wanted their turn.

Job sat in the ashes.
And for a long time, he said nothing.
His friends sat down beside him.
Nobody knew what to say.

Then Job opened his mouth,
and out came the saddest words a person can say.

"I wish I had never been born," said Job.
"I wish the day I came had never come.
Let it go dark. Let it be forgotten.
Why didn't I slip away, small and still, before anyone held me?
Then I would be resting now. I would be still.
I would not hurt like this."

Those are heavy words, aren't they?
Maybe they scare you a little.

Job was so sad he wished he could give his whole life back.
Every breath felt too heavy to carry.
The nights were long, and he could not sleep.
"My days run out, and there's no hope left," he whispered.
"Remember, God. My life is only a breath."

And when Job said all of it, the wishing and the why and the dark,
God did not cover his ears.
God did not say, "Stop that. Good boys don't talk like that."
God did not turn his face away.

God let Job pour it all out.
Every drop.
The way a father lets a crying child press into his shoulder,
and soak his shirt with tears,
and just holds on, and lets them cry it all the way out.

God is not afraid of your saddest words.
He would so much rather you say them right to him
than hide them in the dark and carry them alone.
He can hold a sob. He can hold a "why."
He can hold even the smallest, most tired breath of you.

But something was coming that Job could not see yet,
still far off, over the long hills of time.

One day, God would not only listen to the sad words.
One day, God would come and say them too.

A man named Jesus, who was God himself, would sit in the dark.
He would weep at a grave.
He would cry out, loud, "Why?"
He would taste every heavy night that Job ever tasted,
and carry it on his own back, as if it were his.

So when you hurt so much you can hardly stand it,
when even you don't have the words,
you are not too much for God.
You never were.

He is gathering a whole family of weepers
and wipers of tears,
and he will not come home missing a single one of you.

And Job, down in the ashes, was not finished speaking.
Underneath all his sad words, a braver one was stirring,
a word about a Rescuer who is alive.
Turn the page, and you will hear him say it.