Hurried To The End
In the midst of my suffering, I want to be hurried to the end of the book of Job.
“So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.”
I want to be hurried to the end of my story of Pain. Ushered around the bend, where God has moved the dark clouds from my skies. Seated under the rainbow after the rains from my eyes have ended and I am delivered my pot of gold. Yes, I want to be hurried along to the end where all has been made right in my world and I am comforted with all the bemoaning support that I need from those around me. And compensated for all the pain I have endured.
In the middle of my All This, I just want to get to The End. When my eyes have stopped raining and the final drops have been wiped from my face.
I, like Job, am not patient in enduring.
Long-suffering, especially when one believes in a Living God who providentially cares for His children, like me, exhausts the heart, mind, soul and strength with suffering’s length. Wears one down. Takes one’s crown. Strips one of all former glory. Makes one’s neighbors tired of the same old story. And who can blame them? I’m tired of it, too. Tired of being stuck in the midst. So tired sometimes that I fear for my faith. A sunny surfaced smiling face religion only isolates me further. Numbs me out. In the depths of my despair and my doubts. No, I don’t want to cry on the sunshiny shoulder of a church. I need shoulders like mine that have been covered in the dust and the ash. Shoulders that know how they shuddered when God wills it to last.
Shoulders I have been unable to find in the midst of my All This. Until now.
But these shoulders I have found are buried. Hidden where deep calls to deep. In the wee small hours of my mourning. Where I often stand and usually weep. On these bent-over shoulders. As I have been hurried to The End. Over and over again.
But seeing what is hidden is not seen with Reason’s eye. No. What is hidden is only seen with the eye above whose tears hovers the dove. With the eye that has been stripped of it’s scales, like bark stripped from a tree. With the eye adorned with ancient antimony. Only with this eye can we see. Like Job’s daughters. What is buried beneath the charcoal words of the end of Job’s gospel when it proclaims…
“Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.”
Hidden under this Word of the LORD are the shoulders that stand alongside me each time I approach the throne of grace to receive what is hidden under the bread and the wine of Communion as I hear
“Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.”
For it is there, in the Sacrament of Communion, that the gates of The End:Heaven have been opened wide, for me, to enter in. The veil having been torn in two so that I am gathered, shoulder to shoulder with all my sisters and brothers. The brothers and sisters Reason can see on this side of the Table, in the land of the living. And the brothers and sisters on the other side of the Table, too, that only Faith’s eye can see. Yes, it is here, where I am hurried to The End. Over and over again. To receive the entire body of Christ. And Jesus and all His saints bemoan me, and comfort me over all the evil that God has willed to last here in the land of the living. This is where Jesus, together with all His saints, including Job and my dad, bring me all the riches of Heaven. Every one of them, their earring of gold - the crown of life that they received upon patiently enduring. And their bent-over shoulders. That I might have what I need as I depart, in peace, with all of Heaven still with me, shoulder to shoulder. To strengthen me that I might let go of my need for my neighbors’ shoulders in the midst of All This. Because I have already been given what I need directly from Heaven, doubled over. Riches, including shoulders, that stay with me, never leaving me, never forsaking me. Christ’s body in me. As I am in His. Already in The End.
Yes, in my suffering, I am hurried to the end of the book of Job. For it is there where I find, by grace, through faith, in Christ, to receive what I need, in Communion, from His body. For now my eye, with The Dove hovering over it’s tear-filled seas, now my eye, stripped of its scales like bark from a tree, now my eye, adorned with the ancient antimony, sees. Where I stand, shoulder to shoulder, with The End, and where they stand. With me.
©2019 Jeanne Whitman all rights reserved
