A Woman Called Job
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[0 Comment]Nancy Guthrie doesn't look like someone whose faith has been severely tested. She's an attractive woman with a soft but assured Tennessee accent. When she teaches the Bible, she speaks with a gentle authority. An author and publicist, she has her own public relations firm, regularly handling publicity for clients such as Anne Graham Lotz and the Christian Booksellers Association. In family pictures at her Franklin, Tennessee, home, she stands alongside her husband, David, and their teenage son, Matt, looking like any other happy, middle-class American family. But as most "happy" Christian families know, God's grace dries a lot of tears.
In her latest book, Hoping for Something Better (Tyndale), a passionate study of the Book of Hebrews, Nancy wants to help her readers break out of their spiritual ruts and grab onto God's promise for life beyond the ordinary. For Nancy, "ordinary" came to a screeching halt nine years ago when she gave birth to her second child.
Desiring God
After her daughter was born, Nancy knew something was wrong. Though she named the baby "Hope," there wasn't much to be hopeful about. Born with clubfeet, extreme lethargy, and an inability to suck, among other problems, Hope was officially diagnosed with Zellweger Syndrome. This rare metabolic disorder is characterized by an absence of peroxisomes (cell structures that rid the body of toxic substances). There is no treatment or cure. Most babies with the disease live less than six months.
"At first, I thought it was my fault," says Nancy, "that I didn't pray enough for a healthy baby and was now paying for it."
Nancy was familiar with prayer. She grew up going to church, attended a Christian college, and had a great job in Christian publishing. Her life was filled with the pursuit of Christian things—but, as she later realized, not necessarily with the pursuit of Christ. "There was a sense of hypocrisy, you know? I was so busy for God and interested in theological things, working with Christian authors and books, and working hard at my church, but I wasn't talking to Him or listening to Him by reading His word."
When a friend invited her to a Bible study, she thought, I don't need that. But Nancy's life was at such a low point that she attended anyway.
The topic was Matthew 9:20-22, the story of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. The teacher remarked how the life was literally draining out of this woman. "And I just thought, That's me. That's how I feel—just like the life is draining out of me." The woman was miraculously cured by reaching out and touching Jesus' robe. Symbolically, Nancy felt that's what she needed to do.
"I think for those of us who have grown up in the church, it takes a miracle rescue touch from God to break out of going through the motions. It takes great humility to say 'What I've been doing hasn't been working and it hasn't been real.' " Nancy began by telling God, "It's been so long since we've talked and I don't even know how to do this or why You'd want to talk to me, but … can we start talking?"
Originally published in: Today's Christian, 2007, July/August, Page 22
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