I’m on vacation for three weeks. While I’m gone, please enjoy the top 15 posts from 2023 based on total number of page views and podcast plays. Cheers!

I know that my redeemer lives,
    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
    with my own eyes—I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me!
Job 19:25-27 (NIV)

On August 18th my family gathered at Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines to bury my mother’s ashes. She passed back in March of this year, but the weather was nasty and cold. There was no need to rush the burial of the ashes. We opted to wait for a nice summer day. August 18th would have been her 86th birthday.

Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s years ago, but we’d seen the signs of it well before the diagnosis. It’s an awful disease, and it was hard to watch her slowly descend into the prison of forgetfulness as her body wasted away. In the end, she was just as Job describes:

“I am nothing but skin and bones;
I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.”

In the final weeks of mom’s life she would sleep most of the day. When I visited, I would sit by her bed and read scripture out loud to her. I read a lot of Psalms, and some of Jesus’ words. As I had once read to her mother, my grandmother, on her deathbed, I read the final two chapters of Revelation as if it were a travel brochure for the journey mom was about to take.

Occasionally, as I read, mom would open her eyes, stare at me, and smile. She wouldn’t speak. She’d just smile, and then slowly close her eyes again and drift away. That smile will forever stay with me until I see her again.

In today’s chapter, Job answers his friend Bill’s latest rant in which Bill accuses Job of some unknown wickedness that has spawned God’s wrath and the suffering Job is going through. Job grieves that he has become abhorrent to his wife, his extended family, and that he is scorned by everyone.

Then Job makes a most astonishing claim of faith. He will be redeemed by the Redeemer. At the end of his earthly suffering, after his body has completely wasted away into the dust of death, he will stand and see God. As Job considers he has nothing left to live for except more suffering, he yearns for this after-life reality.

What’s fascinating about Job’s claim is that ancient notions of the after-life were quite different than ours. Even in Jesus’ day many religious scholars believed there was no resurrection or after-life. Job’s proclamation of faith reads like he was one of Jesus’ own disciples who had personally seen the resurrected Christ and then proclaimed the promise of eternal life for all who subsequently believed. The ancient, suffering Job makes a shockingly prescient and contemporary declaration of faith.

I wish I had remembered it as I was reading to my mom. She would have loved it.

Mom’s burial was a small family affair. My dad, my siblings, one cousin, and one grandson and his family. We stood in a circle and each shared a favorite memory or the thing that we loved about her. There was a lot of laughter and, of course, a few tears. I briefly shared Pauls description of our resurrected bodies from his letter to Jesus’ disciples in the city of Corinth. I expressed gratitude that mom had been freed from the prison of her Alzheimer’s riddled brain and body. In her new resurrected body she was with God, seeing God with her own eyes, just as Job described.

We as family stood in a circle and held hands. I uttered a brief prayer.

There are loved ones in the glory
Whose dear forms you often miss,
When you close your earthly story
Will you join them in their bliss?

Will the circle be unbroken
by and by, Lord, by and by?
In a better home awaiting
in the sky, in the sky?

Chapter to read for tomorrow’s Best of 2023: Job 13

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

I know that my redeemer lives,
    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
    with my own eyes—I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me!
Job 19:25-27 (NIV)

On August 18th my family gathered at Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines to bury my mother’s ashes. She passed back in March of this year, but the weather was nasty and cold. There was no need to rush the burial of the ashes. We opted to wait for a nice summer day. August 18th would have been her 86th birthday.

Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s years ago, but we’d seen the signs of it well before the diagnosis. It’s an awful disease, and it was hard to watch her slowly descend into the prison of forgetfulness as her body wasted away. In the end, she was just as Job describes:

“I am nothing but skin and bones;
I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.”

In the final weeks of mom’s life she would sleep most of the day. When I visited, I would sit by her bed and read scripture out loud to her. I read a lot of Psalms, and some of Jesus’ words. As I had once read to her mother, my grandmother, on her deathbed, I read the final two chapters of Revelation as if it was a travel brochure for the journey mom was about to take.

Occasionally, as I read, mom would open her eyes, stare at me, and smile. She wouldn’t speak. She’d just smile, and then slowly close her eyes again and drift away. That smile will forever stay with me until I see her again.

In today’s chapter, Job answers his friend Bill’s latest rant in which Bill accuses Job of some unknown wickedness that has spawned God’s wrath and the suffering Job is going through. Job grieves that he has become abhorrent to his wife, his extended family, and that he is scorned by everyone.

Then Job makes a most astonishing claim of faith. He will be redeemed by the Redeemer. At the end of his earthly suffering, after his body has completely wasted away into the dust of death, he will stand and see God. As Job considers he has nothing left to live for except more suffering, he yearns for this after-life reality.

What’s fascinating about Job’s claim is that ancient notions of the after-life were quite different than ours. Even in Jesus’ day many religious scholars believed there was no resurrection or after-life. Job’s proclamation of faith reads like he was one of Jesus’ own disciples who had personally seen the resurrected Christ and then proclaimed the promise of eternal life for all who subsequently believed. The ancient, suffering Job makes a shockingly prescient and contemporary declaration of faith.

I wish I had remembered it as I was reading to my mom. She would have loved it.

Mom’s burial was a small family affair. My dad, my siblings, one cousin, and one grandson and his family. We stood in a circle and each shared a favorite memory or the thing that we loved about her. There was a lot of laughter and, of course, a few tears. I briefly shared Pauls description of our resurrected bodies from his letter to Jesus’ disciples in the city of Corinth. I expressed gratitude that mom had been freed from the prison of her Alzheimer’s riddled brain and body. In her new resurrected body she was with God, seeing God with her own eyes, just as Job described.

We as family stood in a circle and held hands. I uttered a brief prayer.

There are loved ones in the glory
Whose dear forms you often miss,
When you close your earthly story
Will you join them in their bliss?

Will the circle be unbroken
by and by, Lord, by and by?
In a better home awaiting
in the sky, in the sky?

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