These days we have been reading the story of Joseph and his brothers. This story has always fascinated me since I was a child. Joseph - the chosen one, the fair-skinned son of the beloved wife.
Joseph has certainly lived a charmed life as a boy, but everything ended in a flash. He certainly wasn't prepared for that fateful day when his life took an unexpected turn. Tired of being second best and of being lumped together in the generic term "Jacob's other sons", Joseph's brothers wanted to get rid of him. The first plan was to kill him, but one brother interceded "let's just sell him to the travelling merchants..."
Joseph pleaded, after all, these are his brothers. They have the same father, they ate at the same table. But the brothers' hearts have already been hardened. Envy and jealousy have a way of killing whatever spark of reason there is.
Then begins Joseph's many adventures...
From being sold as a slave, to being jailed, to being a high official in Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh himself.
It is a real dumpsters-to-throne story.
It takes only a few chapters of the book of Genesis to see how Joseph's life story had a happy ending.
In real life, it must not have been very easy for Joseph. Who knows how many nights he laid awake trembling with fear while he was with the caravan of the travelling merchants. What did he feel everytime he remembered his brothers' treachery and betrayal? How long did he struggle to accept that he was now alone in a hostile and foreign world, and that he would never see his beloved father again? Did he ever blame himself for what happened? Did revenge ever enter his mind? What about death, did he ever think of death as a sweet end to everything?
The Bible doesn't give answers to these questions, but given the number of years that it took before he ever saw his brothers again, I am sure that Joseph did not even imagine that his life would have not only a happy, but a glorious ending!
I guess Joseph's story is the story of every man and woman.
There are times in our life when we feel that there is no way out, that we have already exhausted all our options, that everything conspires to lead us to a downward spiral. There are many experiences that just don't make sense, no matter how much time and attention we give to dissecting them. There is just nothing in them for us except suffering.
But somehow, we survive, in different ways.
These experiences change us.
Probably for many of us, our stories will not have Joseph's perfect ending, that is, full closure, with people and events that have treated us badly, trampled our self-esteem and forced us to go on a very lonely journey.
For many of us, the happy ending will be something "quiet", like when we come to realize that, indeed, something good has happened out of the bad blows that life has dealt us with.
We do not know how long it will take before we arrive at this realization. That is why we need the presence of Someone who can be our deep center, Someone who will not give us the answers like a vendo machine, but Someone who will keep us company as we go through the journey's ups and downs, lights and shadows.
God will help us to read the beautiful stories that He writes with our life's crooked lines.
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