Article February 17, 2020 Issue

A God-centered view that heals

Lindsey Biggs

Originally published in The Christian Science Monitor’s Christian Science Perspective column September 20, 2019.

One evening after returning home from an event, I felt anxious and unsettled about some conversations I’d had. I kept replaying them in my head and wondering whether I had represented myself in the way that I wanted to. On top of that, my throat was swelling in a way that was becoming alarming.

I have often found it helpful to pray during times of emotional and physical distress, so it was natural for me to reach out to God in prayer. As I did, a biblical statement came to mind: “I ... repent in dust and ashes.” I recognized this as a reference from the book of Job (42:6) that follows on from some chapters I’ve found especially inspiring. It comes right after God responds to Job, who is in a situation that dwarfed the experience I was going through—he has lost everything, is suffering from a serious disease, and even his wife is encouraging him to just give up.

Instead, Job is absorbed in questioning how such suffering can be legitimate when he knows he is innocent before God, and he persists in doing this despite friends who are unhelpfully arguing for a false sense of God.

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