You Give and You Take Away

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21)

“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42:3)

I remember the first time I saw a broken bone. It wasn’t one of mine. It was my friend Matt’s.

There was a group of us in middle school who spent pretty much every day after school playing football or basketball or baseball.

On this particular afternoon, we were playing football. Matt got tackled, landed awkwardly on his arm and *snap*. He writhed in pain on the ground, holding his forearm to his chest, while the rest of us attempted to console him as best as a group of 11- and 12-year-old boys could.

Matt went to the doctor and had to wear a cast for the standard 6-8 weeks. It was a long 6-8 weeks for him. He couldn’t wait to get that cast off because, with it, he was unable to play football with us or basketball or baseball. He was totally sidelined.

At the end of those 6-8 weeks, Matt was picked up early from school to go back to the doctor and have his cast removed. However, the next day he showed back up to school in a cast–a different cast, on the same arm. We were all confused. And Matt was ticked.

He told us that when the doctor took the cast off, they realized the bone had been set incorrectly and healed crooked. And there was only one way to fix it. The bone had to be rebroken and set correctly. And this time, Matt would have to wear the cast for 12-16 weeks, 3-4 months!

It would take twice as long to heal and Matt was twice as angry.

Matt said he pleaded with the doctors and his parents to not have his arm rebroken, to just let him go on with a crooked arm. He could re-learn how to throw a football or baseball. He could figure out how to shoot a basketball.

Fortunately, the doctors and Matt’s parents knew what Matt didn’t–that the only thing worse than having your bone rebroken is to go through the rest of your life with a crooked arm.

I actually think about Matt and his rebroken forearm quite often.

See, I think sometimes in order for us to be whole, to be fully who God designed us to be, it involves breaking parts of us that have been malformed and grown crooked.

The breaking is always going to hurt. And, like Matt, we can get lost in the pain and discomfort. We can get upset, not understanding the process, and beg for it to stop. But God knows what we don’t. He knows the purpose of the pain. Like Jacob, wrestling with God on the banks of the Jabbok River and walking away with a limp or Job left face first in the dust after questioning God. The heartache we experience is real. The hurt is real. But there is meaning in the malady. There is hope in the hurt. And there is purpose in the pain.

Credits

Words & Music: Bill Wolf