Don’t be someone whom Satan overlooks

I’ve been reading Job. Something different struck me this time, as I read that first distressing chapter. Job lost everything: his children, his livestock, his wealth, his health and ultimately his hope. One person, however, remained: his wife.

I wondered about this. Why did Satan not afflict Job’s wife? When the children were killed, why did she survive? When Job was covered with oozing sores, why was she not?

There could not possibly be any grace on Satan’s part. He would not have decided to spare the one person about whom Job cared the most. Nor did God explicitly instruct that she be kept alive. He said at first that Job must remain unharmed, and later that his life must be spared, but it seems that Job’s wife was fair game.

Why did Satan leave her?

I don’t know for sure, but when I got to chapter 2, verse 10 I had a hunch. Job’s wife was likely the most precious and influential person in his life. Maybe Satan knew, that when push came to shove, she would say to him, as she did, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Imagine being that kind of wife. The kind whom Satan would leave untouched, with the knowledge that she was better use to him alive than dead. What a position of influence she had, and how devastating, that when a crisis came, she abandoned her faith and exhorted her husband to do the same.

Am I a career woman?

I think from a young age, I thought that there were two types of women in the world. The wife/mummies, and the career women.

I’d always imagined I’d be the former. So what happened when I reached my late twenties and I was neither wife nor mummy? It may seem strange, but on occasion the thought crossed my mind: ‘ I guess I’ll have to be a career woman.’ This didn’t seem all bad. I liked my job, and the idea of being strong, independent and well dressed (all part of the career woman profile), but really, a career-focused life just wasn’t me. But what alternative did I have?

Recently I was walking through the city to do some shopping. I was dressed up; I felt good; free, independent and happy, and unwittingly, the idea flicked through my mind, ‘maybe I could be a career woman after all.’

For the first time, the absurdity of the thought registered. Since when were there only two options? Since when was I defined by my marital status or career success? ‘But’ I wondered, ‘if I am neither, then what am I?’ the response was obvious. I was called to be a servant of Christ.

So, I am neither wife, mother, nor career woman. I am a servant of Christ. And no matter which of these things He brings into my life, they are not there to define me, they are there to be a means by which I serve and glorify Him.