So now, deal with me as you please, and command my life breath to be taken from me, that I may go from the face of the earth into dust. It is better for me to die than to live, because I have heard insulting calumnies, and I am overwhelmed with grief. "Lord, command me to be delivered from such anguish; let me go to the everlasting abode; Lord, refuse me not. For it is better for me to die than to endure so much misery in life, and to hear these insults!" (Tobit 3:6)

There is an echo of Jonah in Tobit's prayer. After God had forgiven the Ninevites Jonah also offered, "Now Lord, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." (Jonah 4:3)

To which God responds, "Have you a reason to be angry?"

Jonah was resentful of God's mercy on his enemies. Tobit is resentful of his wife and angry at her retort. Is he resentful of God?

In the prior verse Tobit prayed, "Your judgments are many and true in dealing with me as my sins and those of my fathers deserve." Does Tobit's death-wish suggest he believes this or is this just passive aggressive piety?

God might well have asked both Jonah and Tobit, "Have you a good reason to be angry?"

In every life there is cause for grief. The spiritual challenge of grief is our ability to engage it and to move on from it. Tobit has better cause for grief than did Jonah. But Tobit's embrace of grief has become an idolatry that separates him from those who love him, including God.

God joins us in our anguish. God's love and creativity also shows us the way beyond our grief.