His Friend

My dad had this friend named Earl Wray.  Abig guy, who laughed easily, loved to hunt, fish, and travel.  His little wife, Billie Jo, always at his side.  I hear their voices clear as day right now.

Daddy and Earl met at work, Ford Glass Plant, and found out they loved just about the same things, so they started hunting, fishing, and traveling together and just about every summer when I was growing up, they brought their families along.  The two of them went on lots of adventures together over the past 50 years.

But there was one love they didn’t share for a long time…..Earl didn’t love God.

So his friend committed to praying for him….for 40 years…that one day they would both share that love.

After 40 years, Earl called Daddy to tell him he could change up on the prayers because he had started loving God himself!  Now they shared everything.

Earl is in Heaven tonight.  It was his decision to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and it was the working of the Holy Spirit in his heart that led to that decision, but it was the faithfulness of a friend that told him he would never stop praying for him that helped make that happen.

Who are you praying for?  Have you let them know?

Daddy always told Earl he was praying for him.  When Earl started to attend church, Daddy would call him every Sunday morning to encourage him to go.

The faithfulness of a friend changed a life.

What kind of friend are you?

Photo: taken in 1969 on one of their hunting trips, click on the picture to be taken to the obituary site about Earl.

The Bibles…

Sunday at church, we had a Gideon speaker.  I’m always inspired by the stories they share of how a Bible placed in a child’s hand or in a hotel room changes the course of, not only that person’s life, but their families.  I myself have one from elementary school and one from college (when I was trying to hide from God and there a Gideon stood, handing me a Bible, reminding me you can’t hide from God).

The speaker asked us to guess how many Bibles would fill a semi-truck (the amount that was recently taken to Pigeon Forge for placement in cottages & hotels).  My son looked at me to see how many I would guess and I said 30,000….I was off by 1000…I mean…that is what I do most days, find the missing Bibles from shipments.

The speaker also spoke about what they do with the Bibles they replace.  The wives of the Gideons tear off the hard covers, replace them with paper covers and then those are placed in prisons.

I was convicted, during his talk, about all the Bibles I have…in excess.  What if I gave away my Bibles?  What if one of them helped someone else if I gave it away after I was done with it or had bought a new one.  I went home determined to find a ministry that takes gently used Bibles and gets them to the 3+ billion people in the world who don’t have one.  I mean….when I say I have excess…I have lots of Bibles.  (Hey…but I do work for a Bible publisher and I have already given lots of new ones away!  So don’t judge me too harshly.)

So I pulled out some of my Bibles, ones that I’m using right now, different translations that I use for my study.  Then I went around my room and took pictures of the other Bibles I have, determined to start a pile of Bibles to be donated.

I found….1.

That was it!

Out of all those Bibles I have, I only found 1 that I was willing to let go of.

As I pulled out my older Bibles, I opened them to see pages full of notes, clippings, and pictures spanning the past 30 years.  I realized that I had chronicled my life, personal & spiritual, in the pages of my Bibles.  Each one reflected a period of my life that I marked by turning to God’s Word.  I saw that little red Bible the Gideon had given me in school all those years ago and the red Bible that holds my grandmother’s notes, and my mother’s Bible, close at hand…so I can feel her there with me while I study.

But…I’m going to go through them again and see which ones are more gently used, with notes that I can transfer out, ones that don’t have as much personal info in them, ones that don’t hold sentimental attachment.  Now my project will be to find an organization that can get them into hands that would need them.

As I write this, I think to myself…”someone who never had a Bible would rather have a new Bible…should I just donate some money for new Bibles or buy some new ones to donate myself?”

What do you think?  Any thoughts, suggestions of reputable ministries that use gently used Bibles?

I would love your input of what to do with this excess of God’s Word.  Wow…too much of God’s Word!!!  I am blessed.

How to Grieve with Your Friends

Devastated, questioning, on his knees or even with his face to the ground, he mourned, covered in ashes, alone, removed from others.

Job was in “turtle mode”, he had retreated.  He left what family he had and went to the town garbage pile and sat down in the ashes of burned rubble.  Maybe like the old Indians, knowing their final days were near, he went off to die by himself…not realizing that death would not come at this time.

His wife came, but could not comfort him.  She was in pain herself.  How do you comfort someone when you need to be comforted yourself?  When the strong arms you need to hold you are covered in sores, where do you turn?

“Let His peace wrap you up like your grandma’s quilt in winter.”

She left him there, maybe he sent her away, unable to bare her grief, unable to comfort her as she needed.

Does he see them coming?  Can he hear their wails of sorrow before they get to him?

His friends come.  First going to Job’s house, his wife tells them that Job has left, that she can’t get him to leave the ashes to come home where she can tend his wounds, both physical and emotional.  They walk through the once thriving land, the smell of death is still heavy in the air, the ground is torn, graves are everywhere.  Broken buildings lay just as the wind blew them, monuments to their loss.  The town is silent.  No bleating of sheep, no nay of the donkey.

They find him there, barely recognizable, a shadow of the man he once was.  Had it only been a few days or weeks since all this evil had befell him?  The toil it has taken on Job’s body is tremendous.  They weep for his loss…for their loss, they comfort each other, holding each other, encouraging each other before they approach their friend to comfort him, to mourn with him, and possibly to say goodbye to him.

They approach Job, they say not a word, they simply join him in his sorrow, they join him in the ashes and for 7 days and 7 nights they grieve.

Job 2:11-13…his grief was very great

She Created a Haven

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A Letter to My Son

Adam,

All week cards have been coming in the mail, people have been dropping off gifts and now your dad just asked me what we are getting you for your graduation gift.  The truth is….you’ve already been given your gift.

It doesn’t fit in your wallet, can’t be redeemed at the local mall, or have 4 wheels and 1 key.

You have been loved.

Tomorrow will be the day that recognizes this huge moment in your life.  It represents the day when you decide what the next step is; a day of joy, laughter, adventure, and fear.  Your whole life is before you and while your dad & I can advise your steps, support your decisions, even finance some of them…it ultimately is up to you where those steps go, what path you take, and what your tomorrow looks like.

The gift that I have given you is your foundation, your launching pad, your base, your safe place.  A place from which you can leave and always return, where you can step away from, but always be tied to.  I’ve given you a home full of love.  I’ve tried to be the best mom I could to you and Sally and the best wife to your dad.  I haven’t always succeeded; I’ve failed you all in lots of ways.  But my love for you has never faltered and only grows stronger and stronger every day.  When you come to a time when you question everything that is happening…never question my love for you.

It’s hard to imagine that there is someone that loves you more than me, but there is.  His love is greater than mine, it is stronger than mine and yet, my love for you is based on His love for me.

You are loved, Adam, by the Creator of the universe, by the One that controls the spinning of the earth, the timing of the seasons, the blooming of the flowers, and beat of our hearts.  He created you to have fellowship with Him, not just so you could play in the garden He created for you.  He continues to ask, “Adam, where are you?  Where are you and what are you doing?”

God is seeking you.  He loves you so much and has plans that we can’t even fathom for you.  He has given you and will continue to give you the abilities and strength you will need for what is ahead for you.  Don’t be like the first “Adam” and hide from Him….run to Him, let Him direct your steps, let Him guide you in your decisions; follow Him no matter where He leads you.

I love you, Adam, with all my heart.  I pray that you realize that the greatest gift I could ever give you is the example of living a life totally devoted to God and His Son, Jesus Christ.  My prayer for you is that you spend time on a regular basis in prayer to God and studying His Word.  You can’t truly succeed unless you do.  I want you to succeed.  I can’t wait to see what God is going to do in you and through you.

With all my heart, all my love,

Mom

Escape, Retreat, or Advance

I like animals and critters (well, some critters…some I could do without).  As children, my brothers and I collected lots of critters.  Before it was illegal to bring them out of Texas, we brought horny toads home with us after visiting relatives there.

Isn’t he just the cutest thing?!  We built a little habitat for them in our back yard, giving them sticks and stuff to climb on.  We would play with them, love on them, and name them George.

They always escaped.

My brothers like to catch green snakes.  I remember walking home from my cousins house (oh wow, remember when we could walk for miles, be gone all day, and our parents didn’t worry about us as long as we were home before dark?).  My brother spotted a green snake on the side of the road and brought it home, terrorizing me with it all the way!  We kept him in a big, glass pickle jar, giving him sticks and stuff to climb on, bugs to eat, and poked holes in the top of the jar so he could breath.

We kept the jar on our back porch, on the big, round stone cover that was on top of our well.  I would come by and tap on the jar.  One day the jar was on the ground, broken.

The snake had escaped.

My cousin was into the exotic animals and he had a cougar!  He was about the size of the one in the picture and was beautiful.  I loved watching him.  But he loved to watch my daughter, I think stalk my daughter would be a better description.  I didn’t let her visit the cougar too many times.  My cousin built a habitat for him, giving him stones and stuff to climb on.  He let my cousin pet him and allowed him to put a lead rope on him like the family dog, walking him around.

One day…he escaped.

My nephew had an iguana, which he built a habitat for, giving him sticks and stuff to climb.  He had free range in the bedroom, but…. one day he got out.  The screen door could not hold him in.

He escaped.

My brother had a parrot…yea….we left the cage door open…he escaped.

My favorite critter to keep was the turtle.  Easy to catch and for the most part, they didn’t bit back (except for the snapping turtle we tried to keep..for a while!).  When we lived in Alabama and came home to Tennessee for visits, we always took turtles back with us.  You guessed it…we would build habitats for them, pools of water for them to swim in and rocks to climb under.  Once they even laid eggs!

But always….they escaped.

In truth, they were the most fun to watch escape.  Did you know that turtles will build a pyramid if they are in a box and they help each other get out of the box.  We had about 6 turtles and they would get into formation and then one after another would climb on top of the others, allowing one to escape.  We often wondered how they decided which one was going to be on the bottom, destined to always remain behind.

Studies show that we will eventually resemble our pets or they resemble us.  I think I most closely resemble my turtles.

Or maybe it’s more like I act more like the turtle….when in the midst of a situation that strikes fear or uncertainty…I retreat.  Right there in the middle of the storm I just shut down, I don’t run for cover or try to escape, I simply pull in all appendages and wait.

Then every now and then, I feel something…a lift, a movement, a gentle rocking motion as if I’m being carried.  I dare to peak out and someone has saved me!  I’ve been removed from the situation, from the middle of the road, and set in a safe place.  Oh, but wait…this isn’t the side of the road that I wanted to be on!  Can you move me back, please?  No…then I guess this is the road I must travel now.

And for those times that I’m left in the middle of the storm….I guess I need to pull from within me, that power that is available to call upon but I sometimes forget is there for me.   It’s at that moment I can advance, charge the situation and come out the victor!

So which do you do when you find yourself boxed in, living in a place that looks livable, but was never meant for you to live in?  Do you escape, retreat or advance?  Or do you adapt, learning to live within the cage, give into the restraints, accepting those sticks and rocks as all you will ever have?

I’m not sure how long the horny toads, parrot, or iguana lasted in the wilds of Tennessee…places they weren’t meant to live.  I’ve never seen a horny toad in Tennessee in the wild and while someone did spot the iguana in the woods sometime after his escape…he probably didn’t survive the first hard winter.  The cougar?  Well, unfortunately folks don’t take kindly to large cats roaming around their house in the dark of the night.  The parrot flew to the top of the trees and kept on flying.  That green snake is happy back in the woods, hiding in the trees, doing exactly what he was created to do.

The Clouds Passing By

A car passed me on the interstate today, it looked just like my mom’s car and for a split second I could actually see her white hair on the driver.  I followed the car for a while and remembered all the times Mom and I would head to Nashville, usually to see Grannie and do some shopping.  She always volunteered to take her car and she would drive to Nashville, but I would have to drive home (that was the deal).  We talked the entire trip, but most times, on that return drive…she would fall asleep in the passenger side of the car.

I miss that…her beside me.

If I turn my head to the left, just a bit, she’s there beside me right now, a form of her.  Two solar lights mark where she rests now.

I sometimes hate walking out my back door.  Even if the lights weren’t there, my eyes always go to that spot…where we buried her.

I wrote a post earlier this week about community and how I felt so alone.  Monday, my phone rang for two hours as my on-line friends texted and twittered me.  I felt in community.  But the truth is…they will never truly know me like she did.

She knew all the history, all my baggage, all the names of those that I sheltered my heart from and why, all my joys and happiness.  She knew the sound of my laughter.

She knew the name of the man that made me afraid as a little girl, she knew the hurt I went through in middle and high school.  She knew how hard I fell from my faith while I was in college, she knew the lies I told and lived through.  She knew the history of betrayal and we weren’t done figuring it out and praying over how I was going to get through it.

She knew just what to leave in my car as a surprise that would make me smile, she knew my favorite colors, my favorite foods, and knew I would split a nuttybar with her, but would really want the whole thing.

Some people might know bits and pieces, but she knew them all, she knew how they made me who I was.  So who knows me now?

I wonder if I will ever be known like that again.

As I type this, I’m sitting on my back porch.  It’s a cloudy, night, but the somewhat full moon and stars peak through every now and then.  But just now…just as I was typing that…a huge black cloud covered up the moon, it’s going to be covered up for a bit, the cloud is so big.   Just 5 minutes ago, I could make out the neighbors house, objects in the yard, but not now.  My horse cries, even she feels the darkness.  Even she is alone (we moved her friend to a different field!).

I think that is how grief is.  After a while, it comes and goes.  I can go for days, even weeks, and think of my mom, remember her and I’m okay.  Then for no reason, or a simple reason like a car passing you, darkness comes and I can’t past it.  So I wait until it passes, slowly sometimes, until the light reappears.

And I hear God say….I know you, I know all of you, even better than she did.  That gentle breeze that’s touching your face and making you want a quilt around your legs…that’s me.  The clouds will come and go, but the light will always be there and is never completely blocked.  Even in the worst storm, the sun is still shining, it never stops, it never lessens its power, it is just sometimes hidden for a short time.

The moon is back out…or uncovered again.  That gentle wind is moving the clouds rather quickly and now the stars are starting to appear.  My neighbors have gone to bed, my horse is calm again, the frogs are singing, crickets chirping and fireflies are playing in the field a game of hide and seek.

And now my spirit is at peaceful again.

Come On In!

Warning…lots of pictures in this post.

Sometimes I just like to walk around the place and take pictures.  Tonight I had to be down at my dad’s and then worked a little in the yard.  Want to join me for an evening at my house?

There it is…my house, as seen from my dad’s yard.

And the place where I was raised…Home.

I only like to work in the yard when the sun goes down, so tonight I pulled some weeds by the light of the moon.

I had some help while I pulled weeds.

I may or may not have found where my kitties have decided their litter box is while I was planting some herb plants that I bought at least a month ago and not put into this neat box my husband made me to encourage me to work in the garden.

When visiting my aunt a couple of weeks ago, I brought home two more sewing machines.  These belonged to my grandmother’s (Lewis) mother and her grandmother.

This one was Grandma Hontas…my great-aunt said.  The name was unfamiliar to me and she said her name was Sarah Pocahontas Hinson and was my great-great grandmother.  She lived with her daughter toward the end of her life in the house my aunt still lives in.

This one belonged to Mammie Wiggs, my great-grandmother.  She died right before I was born.

I’m wondering what happened to my grandmother’s machine.  Daddy’s pretty sure one of his sister’s ended up with it.   I asked Aunt Dorothy is she had any of the old family bibles and I brought home these treasures.

They have some beautiful illustrations in them and it looks like there might be about 4 bibles combined in these loose covers.  The bindings are all undone in the black one.  They were both printed after the Civil War, but there was no family records in the bible..bummer!

Well…thanks for spending the evening with me, hope you enjoyed it at my place.

Community – In Real Time (in)RL

Community – What does that mean to you?

It was the first question asked at the (in)RL meet-up this weekend and for me, it was the hardest to answer.  I wrote down all the right answers.  The problem was….it was more what I would hope community was but it wasn’t what I was experiencing at the moment.

I was alone.

I was invited to a meet-up with a community of women who encourage each other, support each other, laugh together, cry and worship together.  I so wanted to be a part of that community but much like the t-shirt I received for the event….I was afraid I wouldn’t fit in.

As I listened to the women talk and watched the videos, so many things resonated within me.  As Emily said…I taught my friends that I was fine..okay…needing nothing and then got angry at them for believing me.  As Ann mentioned someone seeing in her….I’ve been hurt by women.  As Bonnie and Lisa-Jo shared…no one was telling their hard story and no one knew how to hear mine.

As I prepared for the Saturday meet-up, I thought, “finally, I’ll get to meet ladies that won’t let me be alone.”  And while I had a wonderful time, I still left feeling alone (but not without a loot of goodies from DaySpring!).  I came back to a house where the children were gone and the husband barely noticed I had been gone or that I was now home.

I can walk out onto my porches and hear my extended family all around me, we live so close to each other.  I can see what they are doing in their yards, I can hear them laughing.

And I am alone.

I understand what the core of the (in)RL meet-ups and non-conferences were all about.  I got what the purpose was.  I just wandered if there was anyone else like me, alone on my sofa, wondering where community was and how to be a part of it.  I looked at that “connect” button at the top of my Twitter account and realized that’s what I want.

I want to connect.  I want to be a friend, but even more, I want someone to want me to be their friend.

When Deidra was talking about the open suitcases and everybody’s stuff being mixed together, I remembered what that was like, back in another state, in another season of my life, when my babies were little.  I was part of a community that was wonderful!

It was one of those “come as you are” communities, smelling of spit-up and formula.  Where you could show up at someone’s house and understand why the baby was still in her PJ’s at 10am and very much in need of a diaper change.  You didn’t judge, you just changed the diaper and climbed into the play pin with the momma.  It was where you weren’t considered less of a mother if you didn’t breast-feed or sent your kids to public school and let them read Harry Potter.  I knew them…my friends…and I was known by them.

Then I moved away, back to what should have been a safe place and it turned out to be a barren place (with some exceptions).  I made friends, reuniting with older friends.  I had family all around me.  And I have never felt so alone.  I think that is just about the hardest thing to write because many of those friends in the flesh are around me and never knew…they don’t know now…well maybe now they do if they are reading this!

And my definition of community now, after this weekend – it’s scary.  Because now they know, now they know I taught them to believe I was okay. Now they know that I built a wall around my heart that became a prison of my own making (Ann).  But it’s time, time to speak, time to chase community (Sara), time to be honest.  I now know that I must be a better friend, I must be available more, listen more, care more, love more.  Being a friend, having a friend is a choice…I get to make that choice.

So here it is…

My name is Deborah, I’ve been married for 27 years, two grown kids, 2 cats, 2 horses.  I live on my family farm, the same farm where I was raised.  I’m (ouch) 48, I have gray hair that I’ve stopped dying. I am overweight with no idea (or the energy) how to not be that way.  I work outside the home in the Christian publishing field. I love to quilt, I love to sew, I love to create.  I am struggling to be a writer, I have so many stories in my head.  I lost my best friend a year ago and I’m still struggling with that, my marriage isn’t what it should be (and again, I have no idea how to change that).  I love my church family, but I don’t feel connected anymore, I love to do Bible study, I love to read, I hate being outside, I do not (should I say that in bold?) I do not like to work in the yard or the garden.  I do love to walk outside in the cool of the day though, brush my horse, bare feet turning green with grass stains.  Fall and early winter are my favorite seasons.  I take things too personally sometimes.  I have a tendency to think that everything is my fault.  I love to laugh…I just don’t do it enough.

So here I am…available!  Would you be my friend?  Can we do community together?

 

Curse God & Die!

(This is part of a post that goes along with an upcoming post at A Martha Heart.  I will link to that post when it is available.)

Recently, during my Bible study, I skimmed a passage simply because I had heard it preached lots of times and I had read it before…I didn’t think I could get anything new out of truly studying it again.  As I read it, I found myself repeating all the things I had been taught before.  But God started speaking to my heart and leading me to experience the passage in a completely different way, relating it to where I am today.  Suddenly I was interpreting this Scripture differently than almost all the commentaries I studied and any preaching I had heard on it.

That scared me because I’m not a Bible scholar; I’m not smart like those guys.  I haven’t been to seminary or had any formal training in biblical theology.  So how they interpreted the Scripture must be the only way to interpret it.  Right?  I mean…it’s how I’ve always interpreted the Scripture in the past…the way some else told me to.

And I’ve always gotten the same result…not understanding it (in this particular case).

So this time I allowed God to speak to my heart as I truly dug into the Scripture and I let Him tell me how He wanted me to interpret this Scripture.  I’ll be honest, it’s been hard to unthink what I’ve always thought, to think outside the box, to see a new way…to support that new way.

You might have guessed….I’m still in Job.  Job 2:9 regarding the response to Job’s wife to all their trails.

His wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity?  Curse God and die!” (HCSB Job 2:9)

You’ve probably heard or read the same teachings on Job’s wife that I have…she encouraged Job to do exactly what Satan said he would do, she was bitter, she was foolish, she was another form of a curse upon Job simply because when he had lost all – he was left with her.  You’ve heard these, right?  Me too and I have said most of them based on past teachings.

Then I read Job with an open heart and mind, dare I say…a woman’s heart & mind.  I tried to figure out who Job’s wife was based on what little information we are given.  I made a case for her in a previous post not being a foolish woman, but being a woman of high moral beliefs based on her husband’s character.  I backed up that thought process with Scripture and with God’s own description of Job.  I saw that while it was Job that Satan attacked…it was also his wife who suffered. 

This time in my reading I really tried to see it from her point of view.

She watched her husband loose all he had financially, the end of era, so to speak, as his wealth was destroyed or taken away.  The quickest way to hurt a man is by taking his livelihood, his ability to care for his family.  I put myself in her sandals because I’ve stood next to my husband when a job couldn’t be found; I remembered how it devastated him. 

I imagined what she must have felt when news came that not one, but all 10 of her children were dead.  I had to stop right there and just weep for their loss.  Not to disrespect a father’s love for his children…but ladies, you know women love their babies differently than fathers do.  Maybe it’s because they were ours 9 months before they were theirs, maybe it’s because we (even after 20 or more years) still remember what that first little kick felt like, when no one else could feel it, when it was just you and your baby and it still brings you to tears and to the wonder of God’s miracles.  She had to have been utterly destroyed.

And then I imagined his wife sitting next to Job as he was gravely ill, not knowing if he would soon join her children, her servants, her friends (because servants could be friends) in the now too full graveyard. 

Have you ever sat next to your husband’s bedside as he struggled to breath?  Have you started your day not knowing if the end of the day would bring him home again, crumpled in the bathroom in a ball of tears begging God to let everything be okay?

I know that some of you can say yes, you’ve done all that and then you’ve stood next to freshly turned dirt…and my heart breaks for you…the same way it broke for Job’s wife.

The weekend my father-in-law passed away from lung cancer, my husband had to cancel his doctor’s appointment.  He rescheduled it for one month later.  That day my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer and it was the day after we had moved my mother-in-law in with us.  I was the one on the bathroom floor, crying, and all I could pray was “don’t make me a Ruth”…don’t leave me alone…don’t take him from me.

I pulled from those memories as I contemplated who Job’s wife was, what she must have been feeling, then adding to that, my more recent grief journey with the loss of my mother.  So bare with me for just a moment longer as I make my case for this woman.

My mother was a woman of perfect integrity and when she was dying I sat next to her and so many times I thought, “how is she doing this, how is she dying with such grace?” or maybe better said now…how is she maintaining her integrity?  I wanted to know because I was having some issues holding on to mine.  I was mad at God, I didn’t understand this journey He was asking us to take, I couldn’t understand why He didn’t answer my prayers, I couldn’t understand why He would take my mother away from me.  And like Job, when I voiced my thoughts to my mother, she guided me to God, she encouraged me in my faith and she understood that I was struggling.  She did no condemn me…and neither did Job condemn his wife.

However, commentary after commentary (even those written by women!) condemn Job’s wife because of her words.  They say that she wasn’t there for him, she didn’t comfort him, but became bitter and angry.  Her faith wasn’t strong.  And my question is this…who was comforting her?

But the Scriptures don’t say that she was so bitter that she changed her name to “Mara” (bitter…as Naomi did in the book of Ruth 1:19).  It doesn’t say that she was to bring an offering to seek forgiveness from God as Job’s friends had to do for their words (Job 42:7-9).  What they say is that her husband did as he had always done, he guided his wife from a thought process that could have lead to sin, he encouraged her not to speak as a foolish woman (implying that she had never done that in the past, Job 2:10 and he wasn’t calling a foolish woman as some have claimed).

I wish I could hear her speak these verses, I wish I could hear Job’s response.  I don’t think they are words spoken harshly, with bitterness.  I think they were spoken quietly, hushed, a whisper, in agony…

How are you doing this? How are you staying so strong? I can’t understand what the God you’ve always loved is doing.  Why is he doing this to us, to you?  I just want to die with my babies and with you, I want this to be over because I can’t handle one more loss.  This is not the God that I thought was love and kindness.  I don’t think I like this God.

Don’t condemn her because she had trouble accepting what God was doing in her life.  Don’t condemn for being angry or hurt by His actions.  Understand her; understand from her example that we can question God’s actions.  We can be angry at God and He’ll not condemn us.  We can want to give up on our faith on our existence and He understands.

At the end of the book of Job, God restores all that was taken away.  He actually restores double what had been taken away in the case the livestock.  And it was through that woman that the world has continued to condemn for a stumble in her faith, that God restored Job’s family.  It was through Job’s wife and it was to Job’s wife that God gave her the blessing of children again.