Job 19:25

Job says this from the very bottom. He has lost his children, his health, and every comfort; he is sitting in ashes, arguing with friends who are certain his ruin must be deserved. He has no evidence for hope — none. Everything visible is against him. And out of exactly that place he says something almost outrageous: I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. It is not a denial of how bad things are; Job never once pretends the wound is small. It is a conviction that outlasts the evidence — a stubborn trust that his case is not finally closed, that there is a Redeemer who lives and who will, in the end, stand up for him, even if that vindication comes after Job himself is gone. This is wisdom at its most daring. It does not require us to feel hopeful, or to explain the suffering, or to see how the story could possibly turn out well. It asks only whether the end of the story is held by someone good. If it is, then the middle — however dark, however senseless while we are inside it — can be endured without being understood. Job cannot see the ending. He trusts the character of the One who can. And that trust, spoken from the ash heap with no proof in hand, is one of the bravest sentences in all of Scripture.

Julian says in quiet what Job says in the storm. Neither is claiming the pain is small; both are trusting that it is not the last word — because the One who holds the end is good, the middle can be endured without being understood.