Monday 14th September 2026
Reading Job 6:1-4
Then Job answered:
‘O that my vexation were weighed,
and all my calamity laid in the balances!
For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;
therefore my words have been rash.
For the arrows of the Almighty are in me;
my spirit drinks their poison;
the terrors of God are arrayed against me.
Reflection
We’re jumping back a chapter today and there is no apology for doing so! The non-linear nature of trauma narratives is well-recognised. Trauma disrupts the parts of our brains that deal with a sense of time. Rather than events being remembered as something that took place in the past, traumatic memories intrude into the present. The order of events might become confused. Details can become muddled.
Another reason why it can be difficult to communicate trauma to other people is because there are often no words to describe what has happened. We simply don’t have the vocabulary to describe something that is so beyond everyday experience. How could anyone put into words the paralysing terror of a violent assault? How can the pain of torture be summed up in a sentence? If this is to be communicated, people have to find ways to navigate the limitations of language.
Metaphor is one way of doing this. It is common for people to use figurative language to describe incommunicable experiences such as extreme pain. Whilst we might not be able communicate the pain of a migraine to someone literally, we could say it is like our head being in a vice. Anybody hearing that would recognise that it is not literal, and yet the sense of the pain is communicated.
In today’s passage, Job says “the arrows of the Almighty are in me”. At no point has God showed up with a bow and arrows, but the image tells us that Job is feeling targeted, attacked, wounded. The connotations of such weapons tells us far more about Job’s situation than literal language could, and thus we are given insight into Job’s world and experiences.
When people come to speak about traumatic experiences, their accounts may appear muddled to us or, like Job, they might use images and metaphors to describe what happened. This is why it is important not to dismiss people’s testimonies if they don’t make sense. Trauma doesn’t make sense. And yet if someone chooses to share, taking the time to sit and listen, even if we don’t understand, can be a way in which we can bear witness and support them.
Prayer
We give thanks for the gift of language,
for its flexibility,
for the way it can worm its way between the cracks in the bricks when it feels that we are imprisoned,
for the way it can reach out to other people across a divide and enable our truth to be heard.
Let our ears be open to other people’s words
in whatever form they come
so that we can bear witness. Amen.