Yesterday, by Job

Modified from a well-known Beatles song, without permission...

Yesterday, all my troubles weren’t so far away.

They were close enough to put me in a crazy way

Oh, I don’t long for yesterday.

Suddenly, I’m not half the train wreck I used to be

There’s a ray of sunshine hanging over me

Oh, yesterday left so suddenly.

Why my troubles finally had to go, 

I don’t know, He wouldn’t say

I prayed something right

Now, I don’t long for yesterday

Yesterday, faith was not such an easy role to play

Now, I have it renewed along my way

Oh, I don’t yearn for yesterday

In my simple ways of thinking, these are words I imagine Job strumming on his ancient guitar once God decided to restore blessings into his life after trauma after trauma, affliction after affliction, crisis after crisis.  Job’s train wreck of a life combined with his unbelievably enduring faith amounted to a joyful ending in one of the Old Testament's most difficult stories.   Why did God allow so much to be taken away from Job, year after year after year?…the answer is a key piece of Job's story that is never fully revealed.  

Our adult Sunday school leader reminded us this morning to hold onto hope and faith as we walk through the struggles of the present and face those of the future.   She directed us to find some of that hope and faith by remembering the steadfast presence of God in our struggles of the past.

Unfortunately, if I look down that road into my past,  I see a decades long train wreck that tempts me to stick my head under a pillow and never get out of bed again.   If I look behind me, I will see long years where at best, I failed to notice God's presence, hand, and purpose in my life and at worst, they simply seemed not to be there at all, even as I searched and searched and searched.  If I look too long in the direction of the past, my faith will start to crash and burn as my fear of returning to those dark years creeps in along the edges of my spirit.    

I, like a few others I know who have an extended train wreck etched into their life resumes, have spent many moments perched on the edge of hopelessness, pleading for a God who seems to remain silent, crying for Him who seems unreachable, and continuing to believe only by the merest shred of faith.   Years and Years of stepping into the day on only a whisper of hope and ending it in a dark flourish of deep, lonely fatigue... suddenly end.   A God who seemed to not hear, nor see, nor remember this little sheep named me .... suddenly turns despair to joy.  Suddenly... within a few weeks' time... the whole pathetic story of my life just abruptly turned from train wreck to sunshine, surrounded by whatever lies opposite to dark, lonely silence.

That's not to say that my present life is not without its struggles nor without grief.  But, the train now remains on its tracks. Only, sometimes, on mornings like this Sunday and moments deep into dark nights, I wonder if those painful years will return once again.

Since I don't know why the dark times suddenly disappeared, I am faced with the fear of their reappearing.   I am not anywhere near as good as Job in my faith nor as steadfast in my hope.   So, to have hope for the future, I can’t look back.  I just can't.

The prospect of returning to times like those of the past... is more than I can bear.