Today I figured out how to get your comments!!!  Now maybe I can learn how to respond.

One thing I have found in reviewing the Old Testament is that I remember so much of it from my childhood.  The stories of the Exodus, the Flood, etc.  It is interesting.  Everyone should read it if only for the literary and historical value.  So much of the knowledge that we have about the past is found there.  In one way or another it has affected the entire world.  This year is 2013 because of the Bible.

My friend Carolyn is an English and Drama major.  She has been teaching my class for me because we are in the book of Job and she is an expert on this book.  It is considered one of the great books in literature and is occasionally included in High School and College literature classes.

It is a story of all the questions that we have about why good people suffer.  Three of Job's friends and a young man that is with them give their opinions on why all these horrible things have happened to Job.  Job lost his sons, all his cattle, sheep and goats, his health...everything.  He is covered in sores and in terrible pain.  Job's wife tells him to curse God and die.  But Job leaves it in the hands of God--however, Job wants God to tell him why.  

Finally in Job 13: 20a, Job tells God:  "Only don't do two things unto me.."  Then he asks that God not take His hand far from him, and not to let him be afraid.  I hate to be scared.  It is the worst thing in the world.  Fear is a terrible task-master.  

In the end, Job never found out why he was suffering.  It is one of the age old questions we have that goes unanswered.  When I suffer I always tell God, "I hope someone is getting a blessing or something out of this, because I'm certainly not."  God in the end lets Job know that He is God and that Job isn't.

If you are a person of faith, you just have to let God be in charge of it all.  It's easier that way.