Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
Naomi is one of the great women in the Bible and one of my personal heroes of the faith. We first meet her when she is leaving her home in Bethlehem because of a famine. She leaves with her husband and two sons. In the span of about ten years, Naomi loses her husband and both of her sons. This is pretty much the worst kind of tragedy that a wife or mother could ever experience.
I like to get inside Bible stories and imagine I am that person and see it through their eyes. You get a different perspective, for sure. There was a time in which I would have used Naomi as an example on how not to be when you are experiencing painful loss, but I see something different looking at it through her eyes. Sometimes, even good theology gets in the way of other important things the Bible is trying to show us.
So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” Ruth 1:19-21
She left town with a husband and two sons, full of hopes and aspirations and came back destitute, bitter and blaming God. It sounds bad and it is bad to be bitter and blame God. Don’t do it. I heard a wise, old black preacher say, “When you are thinking bad thoughts put your hand over your mouth.” That is great counsel and it has kept me from creating bigger messes than I was already in. It also creates space to deal with those bad thoughts and the toxic emotions behind them. You have to take the time to deal with your grief or you will become jaded and bitter.
Naomi’s name means “pleasant,” but she called herself, Mara, it means “bitter.”
In her “bitter” time, Naomi was trapped in a life of disappointment, pain and despair. She probably could not imagine ever feeling different. About the only thing “pleasant” about her life was her daughter-in–law, Ruth, but the problem with Ruth was that she was the wrong race, spiritually inferior and from the wrong side of the tracks. And she was as broken as Naomi. So she was somewhat of a liability.
There are many difficult times in all of our lives that make it hard for us to clearly see that the Lord is still with us and for us. Sometimes stuff happens in our lives that defy explanation. It is like anomalies that go against everything you know and believe about the love and goodness of God and Jesus Christ. When I find myself in those times I reach out to Naomi and those like her.
Against all odds Naomi lived to see her life come full circle and be healed and restored. She experienced God’s goodness, faithfulness and favor even in her old age. And that liability, Ruth, became like seven sons to her (Ruth 4: 13-17). Even our liabilities will become sources of major blessings.
Friends, if you are in a “bitter” time I have a word for you: Naomi.
Many Blessings, BW