Hope for the Hopeless ???

ever want to just crap on hope? or imagine a pie hitting happy people? or take weird comfort when the sweetest people post their fb status as grumpy?

I laid down to take a nap yesterday and overheard part of a conversation begun by the youngest Benson. It started with "i think we should all read Job". Which began an interesting talk about the life of Job and how things are difficult now but how God is teaching us something. Like to appreciate the good things we have or how good it's been up until now. And I fell asleep thinking of Job and such thoughts.

It's not the first time i've thought of Job. i don't believe it's even the first time i've blogged about such. When I was a child, all things bible and God were banned in our house and so my mother creatively told us "stories" that I would later find out were simply Bible stories. And Job was a favorite. I don't know if she told it often because life with my dad was so repressive or because we asked for it. But it's the one story that I remember her telling a lot on car rides across town. It's a story i'm quite familiar with.

In high school, just a few years younger than youngest Benson, I attempted to read Job. I've attempted or completed reading it many times actually. Because when you've had as "bumpy" of a life as mine, you cling to the story of the person with the crap life that eventually gets redeemed, right? But as I lay there it seems, God felt like placing a bet with his archenemies and he thought Job was a good bet. So life craps on Job and when Job has nothing left, finally Job gives up and then God yells at Job for not having enough faith and for complaining and reminding Job that God is in control of everything and then he gives back to Job 10-fold.

So the point is God's a betting man? He likes to play games with your life? He'll take everything away because he can and if you suffer well then he'll give it back 10-fold? All my life i excepted these lessons as acceptable. the way it all just works. but after all these years of life crapping on me, it just doesn't seem acceptable anymore. I mean, seriously??? this is what we get? needless to say i'm not okay with it. If this is the way it works - the way sucks.

And then I feel guilty for thinking that, and feel the strange need to look over my shoulder to check and see if lightening is gunna strike. But at the same time, I challenge it. a rebellion against the status quo - what would happen God actually did strike? to a certain degree, I do think I would welcome that. Because maybe then we skip the all the politeness and christennese dance and I could just have the truth right there - untampered by belief systems and religious secs, and humans who think they get it. or He would just put me out of my misery which doesn't seem like a bad option at all. I think it could be a win-win situation. At the very least a break in the mind-numbing day to day of nothingness which takes form in job hunting, packing, cleaning and trying to fit with a people who seem oblivious to the fact i'm busting my arse to fit.

so i know i'm a real debbie downer. it's just that i've been holding out hope for sooooooo long it's gunna turn around, that it will get better, that tomorrow is one more step toward the life I desire. and it doesn't. just when it looks like it's gunna get better - something super crappy happens. what is the proverb - unfulfilled hope makes the heart sick? something like that. too bad there's no follow up verse on how to avoid such unfulfilled hope.

So i used to think I was a nice person, but i seriously doubt it these days. I don't think a nice person hates happy people. but I just can't seem to help myself. it just happens all the same.

and my one bit of hope - the State Farm lady called asked a BUNCH of questions and then told me she was going to refund my deductible. in which i told her that i loved her and started crying. i think she thought I was crazy. and i'm trying to think how this is a good thing. a happy thing. a sign for better days. but truth be told i'm incredibly skeptical - just waiting for the next shoe to drop full of crap. so, we'll see. as for Job - i'm still waiting and holding out hope that someone wrote the story wrong and that God will show up pissed that someone on the writing staff took too much creative liberty and hand us a copy of the unedited version of Job along with never before seen authors notes explaining stuff.