Beautifully Broken- A Study For Special Needs ParentsSample

Why such suffering?

As special needs parents we carry the weight of our kid's dynamic needs along with the other responsibilities in our lives and the toll can be burdensome. The weight can feel like it's more than we can possible bear. In the story of Job, the heartache of his losses compounded by the physical suffering of his disease becomes a horrible toll both emotionally and physically and begins to affect Job spiritually. Can you relate?

Job experiences significant sufferings. His disease comes along when he's already down in spirit. It's just one thing after another for him. And this new physical pain is just so unfair, so damaging to the open, raw  wounds of losing his children that the pain seeps down deep into his soul, making his spirit weaken. His pain is so overwhelming that he begins to believe it might have been better if he'd never been born. Job understands the temporal aspects of life. He knows blessings come and go. God gives and God takes away. But Job gets so wrapped up in the turmoil of his emotions that he starts to agree with his wife in a way. Job won't curse God but he curses the day he was born. What is the point to a life full of pain he wonders? What purpose is there in suffering?

Job doesn't come right out and say that he wishes he'd never been born. He skirts the issue. He asks rhetorical questions. Why didn't he just die back when he was born so he wouldn't have had to suffer? Which means he's questioning why God would create him at all in order for him to end up living a life of pain and  anguish. He's done. Job is just waiting for his life to come to its end.  He sees no value in his existence.

It's a George Bailey moment though. Without Job, his children would never have  existed. His son's had their own homes. Did they have wives? Did Job have grandchildren yet? We can't know this information for sure but the impact Job made on the lives of his children, servants, and community can't go unnoticed. Job's life was very important.  We know this for sure because there is an entire book in the Bible based on him! And without Job, everyone's life he had impacted would've been different.
Job's succumbing to his internal struggle is not a sign of lack of faith. He is emotional and confused. He is tormented by unknowns and doubts. He is starting to look for answers to all of his why questions. Job truly wants to understand.
"Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the  bitterness of my soul." Job 7:11

Job is on his way to the knowledge he seeks. He wants an audience with God. And Job  finally gets it in Job 38. God meets Job and queries him back with concepts  Job's mind can't comprehend. And in all God's questioning back at Job, He never gives Job the answer he sought. Job never gets the "Why?" questions answered. But God gave Job the answer he needed. God is God and Job is not. God has His plans and we are a part of the process and His purpose.

Parenting our special needs kids can make us question the why's of our situation just like Job. We can doubt and be afraid of the unknowns. We can worry about what the future will look like. But we can trust, just like Job finally did, that God's  plans are perfect.

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Reflection:

Have you felt it was sinful to be angry with God?

  
Have you used your pain to pursue the truth of who God is?

Can you accept that like Job, you may never get an answer to your questions?