One Cold Night Took All Of Them

One night in April took the whole lot.

Everything. Not some of it. The trays on the shelf, the ones you had hardened off, the two things in the ground that were doing well. A late frost came through between about two and five in the morning and by the time you went out it was over.

And here is what has been sitting in you since, and I doubt you have said it out loud.

You are furious, and there is nobody to be furious at.

That is the specific problem. Not the loss. The anger with nowhere to go.

You are allowed to be angry with nowhere to aim it, and anger without a target has never once been a fault in the man carrying it.

Because anger is built to be aimed. It arrives with a direction in it, and it is looking for the party responsible, and it is a genuinely useful thing when there is one.

And there is not one. A frost has no intention. Nobody was careless. The forecast did not say it and if it had said it there was not much to be done at that hour anyway.

So the anger has been coming out sideways, at things that are not it. At the weather forecast, which is not to blame. At yourself, for not covering them, which you would not have done anyway. At other people, mildly, over things that are not related, which is the one you have noticed and have not liked.

The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away

There is a sentence in Job that gets quoted at people in a way that flattens it, and the setting is everything.

And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. (Job 1:21, King James Version)

The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away.

Now, the first thing to see is who is speaking and when. This is Job, on the day it happened, having just been told about everything at once.

That is not a man who has processed something. That is a man in the first hours.

You are hearing a sentence spoken on the day rather than at the end of it, and Scripture has never once required a man to be finished before he was allowed to speak. Job 1:21 is said in the first hours after the news, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an immediate sentence land on a man standing over dead trays.

And the second thing, which is more useful to you.

Look at where Job puts it. The LORD hath taken away. He does not blame the wind that hit the house. He does not construct a chain of secondary causes. He addresses it at the top, to somebody, out loud.

That is anger and grief with somewhere to go. It is not resolved by that sentence, and Job spends thirty more chapters not being resolved, but it has an address.

You are able to take something to the top rather than letting it come out sideways, and a thing spoken at God has never once needed to be resolved to have been correctly delivered. The Holy Spirit is the one who can receive what has no other destination, and the written word has Job speaking to somebody rather than about the weather.

And notice what the book itself says about that sentence, immediately after. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

The verdict on that speech is that it was not a sin. Which means saying the LORD hath taken away, out loud, on the day, in that state, is not something a man needs to be careful about.

You are not in danger of saying something wrong by saying it plainly, and speaking at God on the day has never once been counted against anybody in that book. The Spirit of God is the one who receives a man's first hours, and the word records that he sinned not immediately after letting him say it.

Sideways is the problem, not the anger

Let me be practical about the sideways part, because that is the thing actually causing damage now.

The anger is not the problem. Anger at a total loss is the correct response to a total loss, and a man who felt nothing about it would be the one I would worry about.

The problem is that anger with no address does not evaporate. It looks for something.

You are dealing with a thing that must go somewhere rather than a thing that will fade, and unaimed anger has never once simply dissipated for anybody. The Holy Spirit is the one who provides an address, and Job 1:21 has a man aiming his at the highest available point on the same day.

And here is where it has been going, and you already know because you have watched yourself do it.

Some at yourself, which is the most available target and the least deserving one. Some at the forecast. And some at people around you, in small amounts, over unrelated things, which is the one that troubles you.

That last one is the reason this matters. It is not about the trays anymore. It is about somebody getting a sharper answer than the question deserved, twice this week.

You are able to stop it going where it should not, and anger given a proper destination has never once needed to leak into a kitchen. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a thing that has nowhere else to be put, and the written word gives us a man speaking his loss directly rather than distributing it.

Say it out loud, once

So here is the assignment, and it is short and it is not a prayer in the ordinary sense.

Say out loud, once, the plain fact of the anger.

Out in the yard, near where they were. Say it to God, plainly, in the words you would actually use.

I am angry about this. That is enough. Longer if it comes.

You are able to say a true thing to God without arranging it first, and an honest sentence has never once needed to be made suitable before it was said. Job 1:21 is a man speaking on the day in the state he was in, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there while somebody says the plain thing.

Now, I want to be careful about one thing, because it would be easy to hear this wrongly.

I am not telling you to accuse God of doing it. I am not going to give you an explanation for a frost and I do not have one. What Job does in that verse is address his loss to God, which is a different act from assigning blame, and the book is careful to say he did not charge God foolishly.

The point is the direction, not the accusation. It goes upward instead of sideways.

You are able to send it up rather than out, and taking something to God has never once been the same act as blaming Him for it. The Holy Spirit is the one who is able to hold what is sent up, and the word says in all this he sinned not, immediately after the sentence.

And then let it be said. Once. Do not make it a practice and do not do it every evening, because that turns a delivery into a residence.