What a Test!

Where did I go wrong?

Where did I miss the mark?

Why have all this beset me?

Why is it so dark?

Just a short while ago

Everything was going well

Now suddenly it would seem

My life is a living hell.

Honestly I am unable to find

What sin I have done

And however I try I cannot discover

Why this trouble has come.

Not only have I sacrificed

For what I may have done

But for the sins of my daughters

And for the sins of my sons.

I have led an exemplary life

As best as I could,

I have reached out to the poor

As God said I should.

Yet misfortune after misfortune

Has dogged my life

And I haven’t a clue

Why all of this strife!

My friends accuse me

For having done some wrong

And the more I defend me

The more they come on strong.

I have lost my children

I have lost my property,

My wife is annoyed with me

Because of my misery.

I have lost my health

I am covered with sores

And when I think what else

Believe me there is more.

I cry out to God

In the hope that He will hear

That what I am going through

Is too much to bear.

The counsel from my wife

Is “Curse God and die,”

But that is one thing

That I dare not try.

For though He slay me

Yet Him will I trust,

He will redeem me

Even after I lay in the dust.

What a testing it was

That Job went through!

What a testimony he left

For both me and for you!

Stewart Russell © March 2018