#2 Mrs. Job’s Story/Our Story

Growth from Loss

Loss. It’s hard to bear. It only takes a moment for disasters like accidents, tornadoes, floods, fires, mudslides, illness or—death—to happen. In only a moment, life changes forever. But the loss can linger and bring bewilderment with it.

We plan our lives. We study to enter a career we believe will bring us satisfaction, renown, and success. We start families we hope will make us proud. Then events and our loved ones disappoint us. Life changes and we can’t handle it.

Perhaps our sorrow becomes a rage that keeps us locked into a place in time. Our hurt and anger render us unable to function as we assimilate what a horrible life circumstance has happened to us. Fear and desperation set in. We must find a way to deal with perplexing, swirling emotions and questions.

I can relate to Mrs. Job’s anger at God in allowing her world to crumble around her. Can you?

But God is strong. He can take our emotions, and if we let Him, turn them around for growth. 

Second Chances

If God’s Word is true and He allows us second, third, or however many chances we need to get it right, then He must have done so for Mrs. Job. Or—what does that say about our own second chances? If Scripture is written to provide all we need to fulfill our walk with God, then Mrs. Job must have something to say to us about that.

At the end of the Book of Job, God is quite precise in what He gives back to Job. Much more than Job had in the beginning. God counted out for us just what was returned. In detail. Job also had ten more children and three were girls. The girls were given inheritances right along with their brothers. Not dowries that their husbands would acquire through them, but inheritances that the girls would keep and manage themselves. The girls are named. Details.

No wife is mentioned.

With all the details, I think if God had given Job a new wife, He would have said so. I believe the old wife grew in faith alongside her husband and stood with him at the end.

The story begged to be told.

It’s our own story, after all.

Blessed be the Name of God.

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). NKJV