Skin for Skin

Do you ever feel like Job??? When you think you have it bad...when your hair is falling out, when your are nauseous, have mouth sores...when diarrhea won't let you leave your house,
when your side effects threaten to cover you up and kill your spirit, pull out your Bible and read the book of Job.

Now Job was a good and righteous man who lost everything during a battle between Satan and God over whether Job was a "blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil." (Job 1:8) Job faced many tests, lost his entire family, and suffered great physical afflictions and he refused, despite urgings from his wife and his friends, to "curse God and die" (2:9) Here is a man who God acknowledges as His most faithful, and yet is allowed to be put through years of torment by Satan and countless arguements from his friends. It is a hard book to read and harder yet to understand why.

But the Bible is always there for God to teach us, mold us, encourage us, change us. Recently,
I had a little taste of being Job. Through a series of chemotherapies that were given to me, perhaps a little too close together, perhaps a little too strongly, I developed one whopper of a side effect. My skin, on most of my thighs, buttocks, back and underarms became "burned"
and peeled off, leaving painful and large, open sores on some of the areas. It was perhaps one of the worst things I had experienced in my seven years of treatment. It was hard to take and harder yet to understand.

But then I remembered Job and his affliction of his second test. (Chapter 2) If you look at verse
4, Satan says, "Skin for skin!" Satan was convinced that if he were to strike a man's flesh that the man would surely curse God. So Job was afflicted with "painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head." (2:7) And what does Job do? He says "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" and he continues to defend God, praise God, remain faithful and patient
for 40 more chapters of challenges, questions and torment. Wow.

I know without a doubt that neither cancer nor its ugly off-shooting treatment afflictions come from God. I know that He intends for us to be healthy and healed and live a long life. Our true test of faith is when Satan and circumstance put us in a position to either curse or praise, give up or go on, go under or live above it. Can we be like Job and not blame God for wrongdoings?
Can we say "the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised"? (1:21)

When you are suffering through your own "skin for skin", take heart in two things:
First, the ending for Job was spectacular. The Lord rewarded his faithfulness by "blessing the latter part of Job's life more than the first",(42:12) and he "lived a hundred and forty years". (42:16) Secondly, because of the the wonderful mercy of this same God, we now have someone who hung on the cross and took our Job-like tests for us. He passed with flying colors. He offers our ultimate healing, redemption and life everlasting. He knew what my side effect felt like and was there every painful second. I will never go anywhere in all this that He hasn't already been.
Christ is our true hope, our rock and our redeemer. With Him on our side, what can man (or Satan) do to us?? So above all PRAISE HIM. No matter what your affliction is right now, God is still as worthy today as He was back in the day of Job.