Ruth 1: When The Going Gets Tough

The first chapter of Ruth is bleak.  It tells the story of a woman who is forced to migrate to another nation due to a famine in her home country.  Over the next decade, she loses her husband to death, followed by her two sons.  All she has left is her foreign daughters-in-law.  It's no wonder that she changes her name from Naomi (meaning, "my joy" and "pleasant") to Mara (meaning "bitter").

Names mean a lot in the book of Ruth.  Naomi's husband was Elimelech, meaning "My God is King."  Their two ill-fated sons were named, appropriately enough, Mahlon ("sickly") and Chilion ("pining").  With their death, Naomi has a case that God has dealt harshly with her (vs. 21).  She has lost everything that mattered to a woman of that era.

And yet...there remains one ray of light.  The Book of Ruth is not without hope, for there is Ruth.  Ruth is one of Naomi's daughters-in-law from the nation of Moab.  When Naomi tells the women to depart and return to their homeland, Orpah agrees and kisses Naomi good-bye.  But Ruth clings to her (vs. 14).

In one of the more beautiful passages in either of the Testaments, Ruth professes her commitment to stay with her mother-in-law no matter what.  "“Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you!  Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die—here will I be buried.  May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!" (vs. 16-17)

If there is hope for Naomi's redemption, it will lie in Ruth.  She has proven her steadfast love even when the going gets tough.