The book of Ruth – Loss and Life

I have a couple more thoughts on the book of Ruth. The one I'm thinking about today is what Naomi said when she returned to Israel after many years. She said don't call me Naomi which means "pleasant one" but call me Marah which means "bitter". She also said that she had gone out full and returned empty and the Lord and dealt harshly with her.

Naomi experienced great loss in life in losing her husband and two sons to death. I remember a quote but I don't remember where I heard it from but it says "life is loss". Many times it seems we lose everything in this life. This speaks to me because of what I've lost due to MS. The list is too long to put in this post. I find that I wrestle with feelings like Naomi had. It would be easy to become bitter about my condition and I have to admit many times I feel the same way most life,. That the Lord has dealt harshly with me. When I see that all that he has done for me and how God is good then that pushes these feelings of bitterness aside. I still feel sorry for myself too often. I truly have been blessed by the people in my life and my faith in Jesus. I think of Naomi's loss and when I think of which would I choose, her loss or mine I always think I would rather choose mine than what she went through. It's easy to say that God is good. It is a lot harder to feel that way all of the time. As the infirm man said to Jesus "Lord help my unbelief".

The other thing that strikes me about Naomi is that she said "I went out full". I think this is how we all may be, we forget the past as being bad and only remember it was good. They left because of famine. She did not go out full. I look back on my past and also forget the difficulties. It always seems the past is better than right now. I remember when I had to start using a cane to walk. I really hated that cane for a long time. I was forever dropping it when I went to do something or was sitting at my desk, it would fall over. I remember if I think honestly I admit how angry I would be about the stupid cane. It also clicked every time it hit the ground and people what draw their attention to me. While I'm in my wheelchair I now look back on this and think these were the good times. When I'm honest I think how upset and angry I was about it. I'm wondering now if in a couple years I'll look back on the condition I have now and think "oh boy those were the good years". Hopefully I'll be able to talk about one more lesson I have from the book of Ruth..