Why? The Anguish | Resources
Discussion Questions
1. Summarize Job chapters 1–3.
2. Job’s name seems to mean, “where is the Father?” When have you faced a time of wondering this same question? What did you learn about God during this period?
3. Reread Job 2:10. How would you answer Job’s question? Why do we many times ask for more blessings and less suffering? Should this be the case?
4. What suffering are you currently experiencing, and how are you responding?
Memory Verse
“Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:20–21 (CSB)
Story
I wanted to scream, but I could only focus on my breathing. The air grew thick with the heat from my sobbing. All I wanted was to dig a hole deep into the chasms of earth, a hole so deep I wouldn’t even be able to hear myself think. Instead, I had buried myself under the covers, cocooned in blankets over my head like a child. Except I was a 27-year-old woman. I didn’t scream from my little cocoon because my baby lay fast asleep in the crib next to my bed.
The above paragraph is one of the most distinct memories I have of one of the most difficult instances in my entire life, but here’s the clincher: I have no idea what led to those specific events. It could have been an offhand comment from my well-intentioned husband, maybe bad news about a loved one, or most likely, it was the result of an internal combustion. My brain had worked itself into a near-suicidal frenzy.
Of all the trials I have faced, my battles with depression have been the bloodiest. My brain’s bent toward self-destruction has often left me bruised, beaten, and questioning everything, including God’s sovereignty. I questioned God’s call in my life.
Even as my faith in Christ has matured over the years, bouts of deep depression continued to ebb and flow in my life.
BUT GOD…
Psalm 6 says, “The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea. The Lord accepts my prayer.”
Years ago, I wrote a prayer next to this passage in my Bible: “Lord, help me always to remember my nights of flooding my bed with tears so that I will never lack compassion, empathy, and sympathy when others seek my counsel or my ears or my shoulder in their own times of languishing.” And let me tell you, time and time again, God has done far more than simply accept my prayer! To this day, el roi, the God who sees me, supernaturally uses the darkest parts of my story as a segue to shine His light into someone else’s story.
Without my mental health battles, I wouldn’t be able to wrap my mind around God’s sovereignty in my life, and I’m so thankful for it. -MM