The scripture for today, June 11, is Job 6:11 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

“What strength do I have, that I should still hope?  What prospects that I should be patient?”

Many people use the expression, “patience of Job.”  But he had on-and-off patience, for he was very sick.  By descriptions he gave of himself ~ sores, rancid breath, low voice, partial blindness, skin turned hard and black, bloating, nightmares, extreme pain, unrecognized by his closest friends, some believe he had a grotesque form of elephantitis leprosy.

What did he need from his friends?  He surely didn’t get it, for they spent their time trying to prove that he had sinned and God was right to be punishing him.  His reply?  “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all!  Will your long-winded speeches never end?  What ails you that you keep on arguing?” (Job 16:2f).

So how do we comfort someone who feels utterly hopeless?  We certainly don’t put the blame on them, nor do we tell them it’s “all in your head’ or to “snap out of it”.  We can share times when we felt hopeless.  We can weep with them.  We can hold their hand.  We can sit with them in silence.  We can pray aloud for them.  (Some people have never heard their name mentioned in a prayer.)

And we need to let them talk.  Sometimes they will say things they don’t mean in the long run, but at that brief moment they do.  Or sometimes they need to talk through things they are unsure about.  They may even say contradictory things.

At one time Job said, “Surely, O God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household… .God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me” (16:7f).  But another time he said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth….I myself will see him with my own eyes ~ I and not another.  How my heart yearns within me” (19:25f)

If you have a very sick friend, let your heart yearn with them.