What a desperate person really needs

Imagine God said this about you:  "Have you noticed my friend ______ (Insert your name)? There’s no one quite like him/her—honest and true to his/her word, totally devoted to God and hating evil.”  Those are the words he spoke about Job. Job was so faithful that of all the people of the earth God used him as an example of righteousness.  He was a man after God. 

We all know what happened to Job. God allowed Satan to mess with him in a devastating way. He took his children, destroyed his wealth, and caused Job to have sores all over his body.  Job laid in a heap of ashes as he lamented the losses in his life.  His friends came to sit with him and for 7 days they sat quietly with their broken friend. Then they began to give advice.  The irony is that some of their advice seems founded in some circumstances, their words seem true of God and justice... but we know that in the end of the story they were of no help to Job at all. God rebuked the friends for their dishonest words and had Job pray for them.  

So as I read Job I found a thread of what Job may have really wanted. I found myself there and recognized the longing of my own heart. 
Job 16:18-22 says (MSG)
There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me,
    in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name—
My Champion, my Friend,
    while I’m weeping my eyes out before God.
I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God
    as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor.

He wanted an advocate. He wanted someone to stand before God and pray for him, plead for him, say that he was worth a rescue.  He wanted Jesus!  He wanted to know that he wasn't alone, that God had not forgotten him. He wanted God's presence.  Will someone go to God's throne and remind him that I am down here suffering?
In Job 21: 3 Job cries out "It's not you I'm complaining to-- it's God. Is it any wonder I'm getting fed up with his silence?"  

Perhaps the biggest betrayal Job felt was that He felt like God had left him.  He felt like God was distant, and Job was forgotten. He asked his friends to stop lecturing him and to talk to God on his behalf (Job. 19: 6)  He wanted the comfort of God.

I have been in a place of desperation. I have felt like God was distant in answering my prayers and the longings of my heart.  Today I remember two moments in which my friends did what my longing heart needed them to do. They prayed for me.  I was struggling one morning over our desire to have children.  It had been at least 2 years with no baby and my heart was broken. I met my friend Danielle at the gym with her sweet Zoie who was probably about 4 at the time.  She saw my broken heart and right there on the grass in front of the Y she and Zoie prayed over me. I felt the little hand of Zoie on my head.  I felt the presence of God bring peace to my turbulent heart.  Another time, I was weary once again of infertility and I went to a friend's prayer group.  These were some praying women and they gathered around me.  My friend, Kim, spoke over me "remember".  She had no idea that I felt God had asked us to name our son Zack, his name means "God remembers".  I was encouraged more than words can say, and shortly after we conceived our son.  

This may be a simple view of Job. I may have missed so much of what it is really trying to say, but for today, God knows the message I needed to hear.  For friends who are hurting they need you bring them to Jesus. They need you to listen to Jesus on their behalf because in their brokenness they may not be hearing clearly.  They may need you to speak truth into their lives, but before you speak, pray. Ask God what He is doing, where He is working.  As a girl who has had a broken heart many times in the past, the thing I needed most was to know that my God was loving, and that He was present, and that He cared.  We can pray that for our friends, we can be that in their lives.

And if you pray, pray for me too.  We have completed our Foster care preparation and are now in a waiting pattern.  Pray that God would complete our family according to His perfect plan, and that perhaps God would have mercy on us and allow me and Jeff to conceive once again.