This week's newsletter from Karen

I’ve learned over the years to listen when God wakes me up in the middle of the night. Last night I woke with my thoughts on the “happily ever after story” of Ruth. But my thoughts were not focused on Ruth, but on Naomi. Remember, Naomi, her husband and two sons moved to Moab from Bethlehem because of a famine. Naomi’s sons married Moabite women (one of which was Ruth). Then Naomi’s husband and both sons died. Naomi, now a widow, knew she had to return to Bethlehem and would be at the mercy of whatever family member might take her in. Naomi did not want to subject her daughters-in-law (also widows) to the same life of poverty that surely awaited them in Bethlehem so Naomi urged them to return to their families. One of the women went home and the other – Ruth – did not.  Why?

The simple answer – Naomi. Although Naomi comes across as a beaten and defeated woman (she asks to be called Mara because she says God dealt bitterly with her), that must not have been the entire sum of her character. Naomi’s example of faith in God in the face of very difficult circumstances must have been very strong for Ruth to insist, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” (Ruth 1:16-17, ESV)

My prayer this week is to be able to set a faith example like Naomi, have that example be so strong that it causes others to see God working in the midst of my circumstances and causes them to want to follow him, and – because they’ve followed Him – to have a “happily ever after” story of their own.

What about you?  Whose Naomi will you be?