to the world...

(I'm gonna talk about me for a second and then circle back around to making my point about good omens)

A Companion of Owls is so precious to me as someone whose religious deconstruction largely began when I was 15 and actually sat down to read my Bible for the first time, starting with the book of Job because it was one of the shorter ones. I had been taught the story of Job, but not the full story. And I remember having the panicked thought that "Wait, what if *I* was Job's youngest daughter, instead of my father's youngest daughter? What if the only thing that separates me from being unconditionally loved by God and being sacrificed for the messaging of the greater good, was a handful of centuries?"

Only to be replaced in the end? Not even brought back? To have a terrible death worth only one verse in the Good Book? Not even mentioned by name? Did God ask Job's children if they were willing to be sacrificed? The way Gabriel asked Mary if she was willing to carry the savior, the son of God?

I was inconsolable. My faith was shattering around me and I was scared. I was taught that God doesn't forgive people who doubt for too long.

I went to a trusted pastor at the time, and he tried for 45 minutes to convince me that God loved me and was Good. But he couldn't answer the question that was breaking my faith: "What if it was me? God is always the same, you say. The book of Job would have gone the same way even if it was me. It wouldn't have changed a thing. And it's real, it happened, he let them die. He killed them."

And I watched as my pastor made a decision. He decided to do what any good pastor would do. He did actually care about me, I know he didn't like seeing me so distraught. And he realized how bad this was, that I needed something to hold on to or I might find myself losing my faith entirely. And so to save my faith, and my well-being at the time, he leaned forward and said:

"Some scholars think the book of Job is a story. A parable just like the others. That from start to finish, it's a piece of fiction that's meant to share a message. That no matter how hard it gets, keep your faith and you shall be rewarded. If that helps, to think of it not as a real history, but as an extreme story that was written to help deliver an important message to us today, and no one really died, you wouldn't be alone in thinking it."

It did help, in the way that all Christians who care about truth have to tell themselves stories to make it make sense. So that they don't leave.

And so I decided it was fiction. And I did my best not to think about it. How in the fiction story it still happened and what does that say about God's character even if he didn't do it?

And so the years went on of me continuing to attend small groups and Sunday mornings. Though the questions I was applying to my Bible were now being applied to my teachers. I remember looking around the room at my peers like "Are y'all hearing this? This doesn't make sense?"

My faith officially broke on a Sunday night, years later. Different story for a different time. But it was months after that that good omens 2 came out. And to be shown a version of Job that said to me "Hey, you were right to feel bad about this. This is horrific. Job's youngest daughter deserved to live. Fuck the greater good. You know exactly what the right thing is." And then they let her live?

Aziraphale and Crowley live on as they did at the end of season 1. That's the true ending. And a few thousand years before that, they worked together to save Job's children, including his youngest daughter.

Cause you know what? It helps knowing that if I think that God is cruel, that the stories we are given to shape us into who they want us to be don't HAVE to end that way???