Sometimes our lives are marred by tragedy. At some point, everyone dies. That's the hardest fact of life. But not everyone dies in their beds, old and full of years. Some don't. And God is with us in our grief. Twenty-four hundred years ago or so, God chose to record an example of such pain for our benefit. To show us we are not alone. To show us that He cares. In 1 Chronicles chapter 7:20-24, we find a portion of the genealogy of Ephraim, one of the sons of the patriarch Joseph, quoted from The Message:
The sons of Ephraim were Shuthelah, Bered his son, Eleadah his son, Tahath his son Zabad his son, Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead, cattle-rustlers, killed on one of their raids by the natives of Gath.
Here we find the bloodline of Ephraim down seven generations. But we also find two names that were not first-born sons, so they normally would be excluded from the formal genealogy. These sons, Ezer and Elead, were killed while trying to steal cattle. I think God includes their names as a side note to point out his redemption-- his graciousness to their parents in the middle of their grief. The passage continues:
Their father Ephraim grieved a long time and his family gathered to give him comfort. Then he slept with his wife again, and she conceived and produced a son. He named him Beriah (Unlucky), because of the bad luck that had come to his family. His daughter was Sheerah, who built Lower and Upper Beth Horon as well as Uzzen Sheerah.
I have questions.
How old was Ephraim when his (fourth?) son Beriah was born? How old was his wife? We know who the first born was. And we know the names of those killed, who were old enough to go raiding. Yet God blessed him in his old age with another son. (But then he chose to commemorate his grief forever by cursing his son with a terrible name-- more on that later.)
I am reminded of a similar grief passage. In 2 Samuel 12, we find the story of David and Bathsheba, mourning the loss of their newborn son:
David went and comforted his wife Bathsheba. And when he slept with her, they conceived a son. When the son was born, they named him Solomon. GOD had a special love for him and sent word by Nathan the prophet that GOD wanted him named Jedidiah (God's beloved.)
That second son, a byproduct of his parents' grief, grew up to be King Solomon, wisest of men and ancestor of the Messiah Jesus. And God named him His Beloved...
Names are important. In the book of Ruth, we find a poor old woman named Naomi. She was plagued by an incredible run of bad luck! First, there was a famine in the land, so her husband had to move the family to a foreign country to find food (ugh). Then her husband died and her two sons married foreign women instead of nice Jewish girls (ugh.) Then then both sons died (ugh!) She decided to go back home to Bethlehem, and chose to publicly commemorate her grief by renaming herself (Ruth 1:21) from Naomi ("Pleasant") to Mara ("Bitter") just to make sure nobody forgot that she had it worse than ANYONE else. She had the "At least" comparison down pat. (I have been guilty of that also-- comparing my pain to that of others.) The "At Least" comparison sounds like this: "At least YOU didn't have _____. _____. or _____ happen!")
Ruth, one of her foreign daughters-in-law, chose to travel home with her to Bethlehem, where she married a rich old man and bore him a son in the most fairy tale of happy endings. We pick up the story in Ruth 4:15-17, reading in The Message:
Boaz married Ruth. She became his wife. Boaz slept with her. By GOD's gracious gift she conceived and had a son.
The town women said to Naomi, "Blessed be GOD! He didn't leave you without family to carry on your life. May this baby grow up to be famous in Israel! He'll make you young again! He'll take care of you in old age. And this daughter-in-law who has brought him into the world and loves you so much, why, she's worth more to you than seven sons!"
Naomi took the baby and held him in her arms, cuddling him, cooing over him, waiting on him hand and foot.
The neighborhood women started calling him "Naomi's baby boy!" but his real name was Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.
So, had God really treated her bitterly? In the end, her grandson became the grandfather of King David, and was in fact famous in Israel, just like the village women said. God treated her generously, in spite of the terrible name she gave herself.
And what about Beriah, named "Unlucky" to permanently commemorate his father's pain? He had a daughter named Sheerah, who grew up to build three cities. She built upper and lower Beth Horon and named her third city Uzzen Sheerah after herself. "Uzzan Sheerah means "listen to Sheerah," so she must have been not only a mighty woman, but a wise woman as well. There's a great commentary about her in https://www.wilgafney.com/2012/05/20/she-built-a-city-sheerah-the-biblical-city-builder/. Was Beriah really unlucky though, raising such a daughter?
I know another such mighty woman. My college friend Candy was named Candace Barbara Machine. If you shorten that, you get "Candy Bar Machine." Her hippie parents did it on purpose because they thought it would be funny. (It wasn't.) She goes by Candace now, and went on to be a career army officer, a mother of 6 (four of them adopted), and just celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary with her husband. She and her husband are believers. Together, they are a constant. People to be relied on. People to seek counsel from. People who abide. If my own daughter grows up to become strong and wise like my friend Candace, then I will consider myself to be blessed indeed.
So perhaps you feel unlucky. (My son who works with me suggests that my frequent setbacks at work are a result of my having used up my lifetime supply of good luck when I married his mother.) The writer of Hebrews had an alternative perspective. He equated bad luck-- hardship-- with discipline. Hebrews 12:7 in The New International Version, reads:
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
But The Message adds a slightly different nuance to the passage, equating difficulties with training:
God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's TRAINING, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live?
But there's another potential reason God allows hardship-- suffering-- in the life of a believer. So that we will then be able to comfort others. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 in The Message reads:
All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort-- we get a full measure of that, too.
And that's been my personal experience with a rare variety of cancer; that God comforted me, and then brought me alongside others so that I can comfort them. I think that's what God wants from each of us. To lean on Him to get through the hard times, and then to comfort others.
May God lead each of us to someone who needs comfort. To someone who needs our presence in their lives, even if just for today. Even if just for this moment.
Very enlightening, as always.