The Book of Naomi

If the Holy Spirit had been so inclined to have written a Book of Naomi, what would be the theme? I cannot forget experiencing a shocking loss and going through some reeeeaaally dark days. I would have never thought I could feel that heartbroken and yet, so numb and out of touch. Months later, I spoke to a great man of faith who'd lost his child. He had experienced a black uncertainty that caused my experience to pale. And in the Book of Ruth, we meet Naomi. A woman who, with her husband and sons, leaves her homeland to escape famine. However, her husband dies, her sons take wives but then die also, and this Israelite woman is left far from home and grieving with her two daughters-in-law. I imagine her staring blankly at them, unable to offer any comfort or explanation. She decides to head home. 

Well, it's not the Book of Naomi, it's the Book of Ruth, and chances are, you probably know what happens next. Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law refuses to let her go alone; she insists on living with Naomi in Judah (Ruth 1:16, 17): 

For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever 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.
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me.

Beautiful, isn't it? Such love, such devotion. What would be the Moabitess Ruth's prospects of finding a husband among God's people? And what sort of life would this young woman have hanging around her mother-in-law's friends and working day after day to support the two of them? If anyone had cause to be bitter... But in verse 19, as Naomi arrives in Bethlehem, her family greets her with excitement. Is this Naomi? Naomi responds (v. 20, 21):

Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?

Some extract from this that Naomi was grieved over the decision she and her husband had made years before to escape famine: this was God's judgment, since all she had experienced since leaving Judah was loss. I wouldn't say that was wrong, and I can't say that in the midst of her grief that wouldn't have come to her mind. (Lord knows, as I was grieving LOTS of things I could have done better occurred to me.) We left God's land and God's people and placed ourselves outside His blessing. What did I expect? But, perhaps, this was simply grief talking. Her insistence that Ruth stay in Moab, find a husband: selflessness or misery? My life is over; you still have your youth. Call me Mara: a self-imposed sentence or the inability to remember life as Naomi without that crushing ache? Don't remind me of the hope I once had, the life I thought would never end.  

I think it's important Naomi does not equate her situation with the enemy or some vague sense of misfortune. She says this is God's doing. In order to claim God has dealt bitterly with her and yet, has brought her home, she must have faith she is still His own. In order to place all of her grief within His purview, she must believe He is at work, He is sovereign, and that He has some sort of role in her life. Even if it is to bring grief for the sake of judgment or testing or greater blessing or testimony. It is in her grief, in her pain which is so keenly described for us here, that we see her faith. One does not blame anything they refuse to acknowledge or give thought to anyone they believe is not present.        

And God shows her great mercy through her daughter-in-law, Ruth. The Book of Ruth. Ruth ministers to her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law pours into Ruth. They build a life together; Ruth's hope and energy, Naomi's faith and wisdom, and a kinsman redeemer. The blessing the women of Judah spoke over Naomi and her new grandson celebrates the new life and the sustenance restored to her --in fact, not restored, but multiplied! to her --despite the sorrow she had known. 

Grief does not mean we have lost our faith or doubt our God; it simply reminds us how much we need Him.