Old Testament Women

I've been reading in the Old Testament a lot lately and have been surprised by a lot of the misconceptions that I've had about the Old Testament. A few of these may have included that it was 1) Boring, 2) A list of names of people who begat people, 3) Full of people making a lot of really lame choices and forgetting the miracles they'd seen, 4) Dry, 5) the word of the "angry" God.

Wow, I'm really wrong! Let's start with Job. This book isn't extremely easy to understand but I'm really impressed with how lyrical the writing is. I'm sure that most bible scholars already know this, but I have been pleasantly surprised. It turns out, even when Job is talking about his rotting flesh, he does it in a very smooth-like-honey way!

The second great realization I've made is that there are a TON of really righteous women whose stories are told in the Old Testament. In fact, after thinking about it, its feeling like the only individual women we really get to hear about are in the Old Testament, except for accounts of Emma Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants, and the collective account of the mothers of the sons of Helaman in the Book of Mormon. I may be forgetting some, but I don't think so. Of course there are also some very lovely images of women in the New Testament, but the Old Testament is full of stories about women who are bold, righteous, wise, extremely faithful. A few that come to mind include Esther, Ruth and Naomi, and Hannah. Most recently I re-read the story of the widow of Zarephath, which is a really nice story about the woman who willingly gave up her and her son's last meal on earth to feed a prophet, who was later blessed with plenty, and even saw her son rise from the dead at the hands of Elijah.

This story speaks to me today because every day I feel like I am about to make my last little loaf of bread and then I won't be able to keep going. I especially feel this way with the whole job hunt. But I want to be like the widow of Zarephath, who was faithful enough that she gave up what she had, not even necessarily expecting the Lord to provide for her, just because she knew it was the right thing to do.

How often does the Lord promise us blessings and then we doubt that he will ever follow through. I wonder if one of the big tests of life is learning that we can, and should, learn to EXPECT that if we are living righteously and doing our best that the Lord will support us in our efforts to live successfully in this life.

A number of times, and in a variety of ways, God has told me I will have a career. He recently told me in a father's blessing that after a little more searching I would be able find a job. If He has told me that, why am I not expecting like it will happen? Why do I still swoon when I submit (yet another) job application and don't even get a confirmation email in return? Why do I worry? Why am I not -planning- for it to happen? The Lord has promised me a job, he will follow through, its my job to prepare for it and to work for it.

I remember when I was on my mission my companion Sister Jeong En Young and I were serving together in Taejeon. It was my third area and also one of my hardest areas. Taejeon was a somewhat cold city, being so near to Seoul not many people wanted to hear what the missionary on the corner wanted to say. In late October, possibly early November, the Bishop of our ward decided to set a ward baptismal date for some time in December, maybe Christmas Eve. At the time we did not have anyone who was even close to wanting to be baptised, I think we, the sisters, only had maybe one investigator in our teaching pool. I kind of blew off the goal of the bishop. I was working for it, but I didn't really expect anything to happen. My companion, on the other hand, really believed with everything she had that the goal would be met. She was inspirational. We prayed like crazy, talked to everyone we knew, worked hard, prayed and fasted with the people we were teaching to find -someone- to be baptised on the date the bishop had set aside. Weeks went by and we had no luck. Nonetheless, my companion started preparing for the baptismal service. We got a nice copy of the book of Mormon and we each wrote our testimonies inside. We bought even bought a baptismal gift, and still we had no one in our teaching pool who looked like they would be baptised.

About 2 or 3 weeks before the deadline one of the investigators we'd been working very closely with called us up and said she wanted her daughter to be baptised. We were pretty shocked. We met with the daughter and it seemed like that's what the daughter wanted as well. She came to church 2 or 3 times before being baptised, got special permission from the mission president and was baptised in December. It was the largest baptismal service I ever attended on my mission. I learned then that sometimes we have to not only expect the Lord to honor his promises, but to actively prepare for them to happen... to get everything in place so that we are physically, mentally and emotionally prepared for God to fulfill his promises.

Now my task is to figure out how I can show the Lord that I'm really prepared for this job he has promised to send me, and to get to work looking for that job that I know is out there. May God bless us in all our efforts to believe in him!