Naughty Days

J and M seem to coordinate their days so that their bad behavior tends to cluster. Fortunately, those days are infrequent. The last one included cutting the kitten Moppet's hair with pink safety scissors (M), taking the keys out of the door to the computer cpu and losing them (M), slamming the door on little sister's face (J), lots of "unsharing" and fighting (J,M) and yelling (J, M, Mommy).

At the point when I hollered "What is the matter with both of you today?", I remembered Job's wife.

Strangely enough, I like Job's wife. And I love Job's response to her. In the midst of all of the horrible things that are happening to them (she lost a lot too, remember), she despairs and says, "Why don't you just curse God and die? Just end this already." Many men would have probably smacked her at that point. Not Job. He calmly tells her that she sounds like one of the foolish women. He does not say that she is a foolish woman, just that she sounds like them when she talks that way. If I could take the liberty of editing his comment, it might sound something like, "What is the matter with you today? This isn't how you normally act. Right now, you sound like those silly, foolish women. Pull yourself together!" And throughout the rest of the book, we don't hear another word out of her. Job said exactly what she needed to hear to restore her to her former quiet, trusting self.

Job's wife reminds me that we all have our "Naughty Days"; days when we act out at those we love, days when we are selfish, proud or despairing. None of us are immune. But that doesn't have to be the norm. Sometimes we just need a reminder from Scripture or someone who loves us that "this isn't who you really are", and we can get back on track.

So, we found the keys, laughed at Moppett' s new "do" (glad that it's on the cat and not the kid), and everyone said they were sorry to everyone else. Now we're good-to-go. Until our next naughty day.

The whole book of Job is quite fascinating, but the account with his wife is in 2:9,10. Start at 1:1 for the background. John Piper has some interesting and related things to say as well.

*origianally posted 2/23/06