Job 7

Job 7

¹ "Does not man have hard service on earth?
Are not his days like those of a hired man?

² Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,
or a hired man waiting eagerly for his wages,

³ so I have been allotted months of futility,
and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

⁴ When I lie down I think, 'How long before I get up?'
The night drags on, and I toss till dawn.

⁵ My body is clothed with worms and scabs,
my skin is broken and festering.

⁶ "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,
and they come to an end without hope.

⁷ Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;
my eyes will never see happiness again.

⁸ The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;
you will look for me, but I will be no more.

⁹ As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
so he who goes down to the grave ^a]">[a] does not return.

¹⁰ He will never come to his house again;
his place will know him no more.

¹¹ "Therefore I will not keep silent;
I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹² Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,
that you put me under guard?

¹³ When I think my bed will comfort me
and my couch will ease my complaint,

¹⁴ even then you frighten me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵ so that I prefer strangling and death,
rather than this body of mine.

¹⁶ I despise my life; I would not live forever.
Let me alone; my days have no meaning.

¹⁷ "What is man that you make so much of him,
that you give him so much attention,

¹⁸ that you examine him every morning
and test him every moment?

¹⁹ Will you never look away from me,
or let me alone even for an instant?

²⁰ If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
O watcher of men?
Why have you made me your target?
Have I become a burden to you? ^b]">[b]

²¹ Why do you not pardon my offenses
and forgive my sins?
For I will soon lie down in the dust;
you will search for me, but I will be no more."

"Job's thoughts are as violent as the sieve of testing in which God has permitted the Satan to shake him. He appeals to God to make his agony endurable by making it meaningful. Otherwise let Him show pity by bringing Job to death. Job's pain has the authenticity of all who have been injured in their wrestling with God, even though they limp for the rest of their life (Gn. 32:31). If he seems defiant, it is the daring of faith. All that Job has known about God he still believes. But God's inexplicable ways have his mind perplexed to the breaking-point. Job is in the right; but he does not know that God is watching with silent compassion and admiration until the test is fully done and it is time to state His approval publicly (Jb 42:8)."
--Job by Francis I. Anderson p.139

I Then Shall Live

I then shall live as one who's been forgiven.
I'll walk with joy to know my debts are paid.
I know my name is clear before my Father;
I am His child and I am not afraid.
So, greatly pardoned, I'll forgive my brother;
The law of love I gladly will obey.

I then shall live as one who's learned compassion.
I've been so loved, that I'll risk loving too.
I know how fear builds walls instead of bridges;
I'll dare to see another's point of view.
And when relationships demand commitment,
Then I'll be there to care and follow through.

Your Kingdom come around and through and in me;
Your power and glory, let them shine through me.
Your Hallowed Name, O may I bear with honor,
And may Your living Kingdom come in me.
The Bread of Life, O may I share with honor,
And may You feed a hungry world through me.

Amen, Amen, Amen

--Gloria Gaither

Essentials of Pedriatric Nursing

"Enforced dependency is a chief characteristic of the sick role and accounts for the numerous instances of toddler negativism. For example, rigid schedules, different clothes, altered care giving activities, unfamiliar surroundings, separation from parents, and medical procedures usurp toddlers' control over their world. Although most toddlers initially react negatively and aggressively to such dependency, prolonged loss of autonomy may result in passive withdrawal from interpersonal relationships and regression in all areas of development."
-p662

"Adolescents' struggle for independence, self-assertion, and liberation centers on the quest for personal identity. Anything that interferes with this poses a threat to their sense of identity and results in a loss of control."
-662

"Because separation is such an important issue surrounding hospitalization for young children, children who are active and strong willed tend to fare better when hospitalized than youngsters who are passive."
-663

"Feelings of loss of control result from separation, physical restriction, changed routines, enforced dependency, and magical thinking."
-670

"The dependent role of the hospitalized patient imposes tremendous feelings of loss on older children. Principle interventions should focus on respect for individuality and the opportunity for decision making. Although these sound simple, their efficacy lies with nurses who are flexible and tolerant. It is also important for the nurse to empower the patient while not feeling threatened by a sense of lessened control.

Enabling children's control involves helping them maintain independence and promoting the concept of self-care. Self-care refers to the practice of activities that individuals personally initiate and perform on their own behalf in maintaining life, health, and well-being (Orem, 2001). ...Whenever possible, these activities are encouraged in the hospital. Other approaches include jointly planning care, time structuring, wearing street cloths, making choices in food selections and bedtime, continuing school activities, and rooming with an appropriate age-mate."
-271


--Wong's Essentials of Pediatric Nursing 8th edition by Marilyn J. Hockenberry and David Wilson

Job

"Why is light given to him who suffers,
And life to the bitter of the soul,
Who long for death, but there is none,
And dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
Who rejoice greatly,
And exult when they find the grave?
Why is the light given to a man whose way is hidden,
And whom God has hedged in?
For my groaning comes at the sight of my food,
And my cries pour out like water.
For what I fear comes upon me,
And what I dread befalls me.
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet,
And I am not at rest, but turmoil comes."
--Job 3:20-26

"What is a man that You magnify him,
And that You are concerned about him,
That You examine him every morning
And try him every moment?
Will You never turn Your gaze away from me,
Nor let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
Have I sinned? What have I done to You,
O watcher of men?
Why have You set me as Your target,
So that I am a burden to myself?
Why then do You not pardon my transgression
And take away my iniquity?
For now I will lie down in the dust;
And You will seek me, but I
will not be."
--Job 7:17-21

The Destitute

"What is reported of men, whether it be true or false, may play as large a part in their lives, and above all in their destiny, as the things they do." -p19

"Mlle Baptistine was tall, pale, thin and gentle, a perfect expression of all that is implied by the word 'respectable': for it seems that a women must become a mother before she can be termed 'venerable'. She had never been pretty. Her life, which had been wholly occupied with good works, had endowed her with a kind of pallor and luminosity, and as she grew older she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been skinniness in her youth had become, as she matured, a quality of transparency through which her saintly nature could be seen to shine. She was a spirit more than she was a virgin. Her being seemed composed of shadow, with too little substance for it to posses sex. It was a shred of matter harbouring light, with large eyes that were always cast down; a pretext for a soul to linger on earth." -20

"Can human nature be ever wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof? Is there not in every human soul, and was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean, an essential spark, an element of the divine, indestructible in this world and immortal in the next, which goodness can preserve, nourish, and fan into glorious flame, and which evil can never quite extinguish?" -98

With the hazy perception of an unformed nature and an overborne intelligence, he was confusedly unaware of something monstrous that oppressed him. Did he seek to look upward beyond the pallid half-light in which he crouched, it was to see, with mingled terror and rage, an endless structure rising above him, a dreadful piling-up of things, laws, prejudices, men and facts, whose shape he could not discern and whose mass appalled him, and which was nothing else than the huge pyramid that we call civilization. Here and there in the formless, swarming heap, near to him or at an inaccessible height, some detail would be thrown into sharp relief- the prison- warder with his truncheon, the gendarme with his sabre; above these the mitred bishop, and at the very top, like a sun, the Emperpor radiantly crowned. Far from dispelling his own darkness, those distant splendors seemed only to intensify it. Life came and went above his head- laws, prejudices, facts, men and things- in the intricate and mysterious pattern God stamps on civilization, bearing down and crushing him with a placid cruelty and remorseless indifference. Men fallen into the nethermost pit of adversity, lost in that limbo where the eyes do not follow, those outcasts of the law feel upon their necks the whole weight of society, so formidable to the outsider, so terrifying to the underdog. -101
--Les Miserables

"Thinking and understanding are regarded as akin to a form of perceiving; for in the one as well as the other the soul discriminates and is cognizant of something which is."
--De Anima, III, 3 427a 21.

The Wonderful Cross

D                 G        D
When I survey the wondrous cross
D            G         D     A
On which the Prince of glory died,
D                 G         D
My richest gain I count but loss,
D           A               D
And pour contempt on all my pride.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down:
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

      G         D             G         D
Oh the wonderful Cross, oh the wonderful Cross
       G                D               A
Bids me come and die and find that I may truly live

      G         D             G         D
Oh the wonderful Cross, oh the wonderful Cross
       G              D
All who gather here by grace draw near
   A
And bless Your name

Were the whole realm of Nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all!