Job CCVII

 A stranger is a stranger. They don’t know you, you don’t know them, and for the most part, their opinion holds little weight. Your spouse and a stranger can say the same thing, in the same tone, with the same inflection, and the one spoken by your spouse will smart far worse than the words of the stranger.

It’s not the stranger that abandons you, it’s those closest to you. It’s also when you feel the pain of it more thoroughly, because those now pretending not to know you were the selfsame people who sat at your table, ate your food, and enjoyed your company. Job was discovering how fickle his inner circle was, how situational their feigned loyalty and friendship, because those who had once crowded around him, vying for his attention, had now become completely estranged from him.

It was not Job’s choice; it was their choice, and now Job lamented the reality of having had fair-weather friends all along and not realizing it. It’s inevitable that people grow apart as they journey through life. People you once called friends in your teens likely aren’t the same people in your fifties. People move, they get married, they have children, and the friendships you thought would have permanence and be part of your life until its twilight wane, and falter.

What Job was experiencing wasn’t growing apart over time, but abandonment the moment he was no longer the prosperous, powerful man he had been up until his moment of testing came. There isn’t much you can do about choosing your family, but you do have agency when it comes to choosing your friends. Choose wisely; otherwise, when you need them most, they’ll disappear into the ether as though they were never there.

Being abandoned during seasons of trial is not something we fear or concern ourselves with when it comes to God, because He has promised that He will neither leave us nor forsake us. There is steadfastness and permanence in the promises of God, and when He says He changes not, He means it. For those who’ve never been abandoned or forsaken by friends or family, it may sound nice and comforting, but it will not resonate on the level that it will with those who’ve gone through such an experience.

The reason abandonment by those closest to us in our time of need feels so raw and painful is also due to the implied betrayal. In many cases, they don’t just grow indifferent but outright hostile, likely because deep down they know they’re in the wrong, don’t want to admit it, and choose to lash out.  

Only those who’ve truly been hungry understand the value of a warm meal and appreciate it far beyond someone who’s never been forced to miss one, not because they chose to, but because there was nothing to eat, ever will. The same goes for being cold or thirsty, because once you’ve experienced privation of any sort, you become more grateful, thankful, and appreciative when what you were deprived of becomes readily accessible.

My daughters do not appreciate freedom to the same extent I do because all they’ve ever known is freedom. I grew up in a communist country, saw the toll it took on my parents, and experienced the heavy-handed practices of authoritarianism to the point that being left alone by the powers that be and not dictated to regarding the minutest of details regarding my personal life is considered a gift and a grace.

It’s because they’ve never experienced it that a particular segment of the population is endlessly droning on about totalitarian governments and that we’re living in one. Those who come from former communist block countries, who grew up in true totalitarianism, can’t help but roll their eyes and think to themselves, just you wait. If you think this is totalitarianism, when it finally does arrive on our doorstep, you will be stunned into paralysis.

It doesn’t matter who you are; we all filter present experiences through the prism of past experiences. If you’ve ever been bedridden for a prolonged period of time, then when someone you know, whether friend or family, goes through a similar trial, your first impulse is to sympathize and empathize with them rather than try to crack a joke about how it must be fun to just lie around all day.

If they’ve never gone through it, all they see is someone propped up on some pillows, whittling the day away. They don’t see the muscle cramps, the bed sores, and the atrophied muscles, and they do not understand that the comfy bed eventually starts feeling like a prison, one which the individual in question would do anything to escape.

Job had already stated that he would have been a better friend to the three men who were berating him had they been in his situation. He had come to realize that it extended beyond the three to everyone he knew and to everyone he thought he could rely on if ever the need arose. That is a hard pill to swallow for any man, and had Job not had the relationship with God that he did, it could have very well been the nail in his coffin of desperation.

It is a cruelty that cannot be understated, to be abandoned by family, friends, brothers, and acquaintances when you need them the most. Never be stingy with your kindness. Never be stingy with an encouraging word or with providing a shoulder for someone to cry on. It’s those small, random acts of kindness that mean more to those on the receiving end than you will ever know.

All it would have taken for Job to see his world a bit brighter and have some hope infused into his countenance would have been for one of his friends to say, I believe you, I’ll pray with you, for you, intercede on your behalf, and cry out to God because there must be something more to the story than what we currently perceive. Not a high bar, or unachievable ideal by any means, but even so, everyone in Job’s life fell short.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.