This is a continuation of an earlier post introducing the book of Job and a Korean Drama called It’s Okay, That’s Love (괜찮아, 사랑이야).
Both Job and Jae-yeol have some things to say about sleeping and suffering.
Our Bible study group has been studying the book of Job and study 3 (chapter 6 – 27) focuses on Job’s insistence to his friends that he has done nothing wrong to merit the kind of suffering he has gone through: “If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas.” (Job 6: 2-3)
When Job says the following, it accurately reflects Jae-yeol’s trouble with sleeping:
Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired labourer waiting to be paid, so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down I think, “How long before I get up?” The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn…..When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. (Job 7: 2-4, 13-15)
Due to his extreme childhood trauma, Jae-yeol is unable to sleep in a bed. He hides this from everyone he meets. By episode 6 Jae-yeol trusts Hae-soo enough to reveal that that his bed is actually his bathtub.
Above the bathtub hangs a pair of colourful paintings, one each of a night and day scene, with a camel tied to a tree trunk. As Hae-soo looks at the pictures, Jae-yeol explains:
Do you know what this picture of a camel is? Nomads in the desert tie up camels like this at night. In the morning, they untie the string, but the camel doesn’t escape. It remembers the night where it was tied up. Like how we remember our old scars. It’s saying that our old scars, or traumas, are currently grabbing onto our ankles (keeping us pulled down). I have my bathroom, and you have your anxiety.
This is not the end of either story (there are 42 chapters in Job and a few more episodes of the drama) and I would like to believe there must be happy endings to both. What will it take for Jae-yeol to overcome his trauma and for Job to overcome his suffering? I will continue this in a future post.
