Collateral Damage

We were the beasts of your farmyard and fields.
We meant no harm, wanting nothing more
Than to graze on green grass and rest in clean straw.
Why was it necessary to send evil men to steal us,
Or cast thunder, lightning  and fire down upon us
Simply to win a wager with the Devil?
Why should the restoration of our master's fortune;
Twice blessed in beasts and progeny,
Be a cause for us to rejoice?
We who were slain in order for faith to be tested.

We were the sons and daughters of Job.
Looking forward to love, marriage and children.
Why was it necessary to bring forth a great wind
To collapse our eldest brother's home upon us?
Why sacrifice us to prove our father's faith to Satan
Whom you can vanquish at any time, but won't?
How can we help but resent and envy the existence
Of the progeny given later to twice-blest Job?
How can we not yearn unceasingly for the lives
Wrested from us that were bestowed upon them?

I am the chastised wife of Job.
Bereft of our livestock, our riches, our children,
Having to witness my husband's undeserved suffering,
Was it weak of me to question God's plan?
It certainly was not loving of my husband
To reproach me rather than try to console me
In my grief.  Is it wrong for a mother to rage at God
When he takes her children away from her?
Does he think that giving me a new family means
That I won't still love and mourn those whom I lost?

"Have faith and question not the wisdom and works
of the Lord, for his ways are wondrous and strange."
For those of us who suffer his collateral damage,
We pawns sacrificed to further some Divine Plan
That we feel removed from or can't comprehend,
Are we to submit without a protest, without a curse,
Without a raised fist, or at least a questioning "Why?"
Job was well taken care of.  His faith was rewarded.
Why were so many candles extinguished though, their light
Snuffed out, just so his could illuminate more brightly?