The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow (Ps. 146:9)
Last week we celebrated All Saints Day. Compared to those we consider “real” saints, our own lives look very ordinary. We forget that the saints serve an extraordinary God who has an astonishing desire to bless the most ordinary people.
On Sunday we read about two widows, Ruth and Naomi. Famine had driven Naomi, together with her husband and sons, to flee from Bethlehem to Moab as refugees. Her husband died, her sons died and she returned home, destitute, with her daughter-in-law Ruth. Both widows had experienced heartache, hunger and the challenge of living as strangers in a strange place. For a time Naomi even tells the women in Bethlehem to call her Mara – which means bitter.
However, in the midst of bitterness, Naomi encounters true grace: a daughter-in-law, Ruth, whose love is steadfast and true. Naomi’s story ends with the women of Bethlehem praising God for renewing Naomi’s life and giving her a daughter-in-law worth seven sons!
By God’s grace the Saints, Ruth and Naomi, you and I, in our struggle to simply survive, encounter blessing we never expected and family we never knew we had.
God Bless, Sean