Yet when I hoped for good, evil came;
    when I looked for light, then came darkness.
Job 30:26 (NIV)

I was listening to a song yesterday that hadn’t been in my queue in many years. I listened to it a lot back in the day. It’s about the unexpected joy of meeting “the one” when life is a simple as getting married, settling down, and having children. I played this song a lot when Wendy and I were engaged because “the one” the songwriter meets is a girl with “mahogany hair, and eyes of sweet amethyst,” which is just so Wendy. The song so aptly captured those days.

As I drove and sang along with the lyrics it struck me that it does all seem so simple when you’re high on love and, as my friend the marriage therapist says, “The pixie dust hasn’t worn off yet.” It does seem so simple at that waypoint on life’s journey: get married, buy a house, have children. But, things don’t always happen as envisioned. Wendy and I got married, bought the cute little house, but the children part would never come to fruition.

In a moment of synchronicity, shorty after I contemplated these things, I found out that a young person I know has been diagnosed with cancer. I officiated their wedding just a few summers ago.

Sometimes, life doesn’t turn out like we envisioned.

Today’s chapter is part two of Job’s closing arguments in the mock trial he envisions having with God. In yesterday’s chapter he waxed nostalgic about how good his life was before the fateful day when his life was turned upside down; The day everything went from being blessed to being cursed. Now, Job contrasts the realities of his suffering with “the good ol’ days” when life was as simple as doing the right thing, and being blessed for it.

Amidst the bitterness of his suffering, Job once again accuses God of being the perpetrator of his misery. He not only accuses God of attacking him ruthlessly, but also of standing there staring and gloating like some kind of psychopath.

Job then states that nothing changed in his life or behavior that would justify the curse his life has become. For so long, the Santa Clause formula worked for him. Job was a good man. He was generous and gracious to those less fortunate, and his life was blessed with wealth, health, and honor in his community. Nothing changed in his behavior, he argues, and yet the blessings were stolen away and the terror of physical suffering became his 24/7 reality. Based on his previous experience, Job had every reason to expect a life of goodness and light, but he now finds himself experiencing nothing but evil and darkness.

Sometimes, life doesn’t turn out like we envisioned.

As I meditated on this reality in the quiet this morning, I was reminded of a couple of observations I’ve made along my life journey. Those visions I had of how life would turn out are based on generalities and perceptions. Yes, for a large group of humans, life appears to follow a general pattern: childhood, high school, college, career, marriage, children, climbing the ladder, empty nest, grandchildren, retirement, and golden years. And, my perception of those around me is that everyone has a “normal” life in which these things happen routinely with little trouble.

But generalities and perceptions are not reality. I’ve been blessed to spend most of my life in intimate friendships with a large handful of very different friends. A casual observer could easily look at any of these friends and perceive a blessed life following the general pattern. However, they don’t know the things I know about my life, or the lives of my friends. They haven’t witnessed the struggles, the tears, the bitter disappointments, the chronic physical suffering, the diagnoses, the chemo, the family insanity, the miscarriages, the lay-offs and terminations, the affairs, the coming out of the closet, the marital struggles, the deep depressions or the suicide attempts. These are all part of the the life realities I’ve experienced walking alongside the every day “blessed” lives of friends and loved ones. Yet these negative realities and struggles are hidden from the casual observer who simply sees individuals and couples whose lives fit the general pattern and appear relatively blessed and trouble-free.

In the person of Job I find an extreme black and white contrast. Once again, I find that we as humans like things reduced to simple binaries, and Job gives us what we like: he boils his circumstances down to a simple black-and-white. The past was good, his present is bad. He was in the light, but now everything is darkness. I confess that life and the evil one have thrown Job an exceptionally wicked curveball. Yet, I also know from 57 years of experience that life is not a simple binary. Even the most apparently blessed lives have painful struggles. In the midst of my deepest suffering, I still have blessings to which I can desperately cling.

Sometimes, life doesn’t turn out like we envisioned.

Life rarely turns out like we envisioned.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.