I got a text today that someone needed me.  It feels so good to be needed!  When you are in the middle of a depressive episode and feel like you are no better than a lump of poo, it feels good to know that someone else can benefit from your existence on the planet.  Even a lump of poo has lots of good to give when you put it in the soil it increases aeration and nitrogen levels….the gardener in me is coming out.   Seriously though, even when you feel like crap, you can still be of value when you go where you need to be and that is what I was able to do today.p

Anyway, I got to help someone who was feeling down.  She needed me, but I needed her too.  She knew that I would get it because I’ve been there and she knows that.  Tears don’t scare me. Hugs aren’t awkward.  I didn’t have any solutions to her problems, but I sat in it with her and I hope I helped a little.

Today’s lesson was on Job.  I’ve been thinking about him all week.  He’s the guy that you can always say, “At least it isn’t that bad.”  Reading his story again I was struck by several things.  First and foremost I was reminded that bad things happen to good people.  Really good people sometimes.  We want the world to make sense and be tidy.  We want easy answers and simple solutions.  Sometimes life is a crap pile and nothing makes sense.  Nobody understands that like Job did, sitting on the floor, covered in boils, his skin falling off in leprous chunks, mourning the deaths of his ten children and all his livelihood.  He didn’t know when or if things were going to get any better.  Still, he kept his faith.  His understanding of God was incorruptible.  Satan threw everything he had at Job and ironically he only made Job stronger.  When Job rose from the ashes of his broken world, Satan just threw up his hands.  What more could he have done to break that man?  He used all his ammunition on that one guy and he got knocked on his butt! I love that image.  

Let me tell you friend, Satan beats on me.  Sometimes I feel like he is walking right beside me whispering his lies into my ear every minute he gets a chance.  I want to just say, “Aren’t there other people on this planet that you want to talk to?  I’m nobody!  Go torment someone else.”  Every day I tell him to go back to hell, and everyday I get better at seeing him and saying it.  The Savior is stronger than he is and Job knew it.  I know it too, and he isn’t going to beat me. I imagine the Savior looking at Satan and just saying, “Keep working on her!  I know how strong she is.  You’re just tempering the steel of her blade and one of these days she’s going to stab you through the heart with it.”  I am his instrument being fired with Satan’s fire.  He’s not going to win because my story was written long ago and I’ve already won.  Just like Job won.  Just like the Savior won.  I am HIS handmaid and I was born to win this fight. 

It’s a broken world, but we are not without hope. We have the Master on our side and he is Mighty to Save!  We are enough.  We are strong.  Satan will not take us.  I have a vision of a body of broken saints rising to meet the tide of wickedness, challenging the evil around us, and knocking Satan on his butt.  Let’s do this.