So I had a hard week!  Things didn’t quite turn out the way I had hoped and I was left disappointed & discouraged.  As I continue my studies on the book of Ruth I’ve learned a valuable lesson from Naomi’s response to her tragic circumstances which would have brought tremendous disappointment.

•Due to famine, she and her family left Bethlehem to go live in the foreign land of Moab.

•Her husband died.

•Her sons both married Moabite women (probably not her first choice).

•Then the unimaginable happened; both of her sons also died.

•She was left in a foreign land with her two Moabite daughters-in-law.

Her world was turned upside down.  So she, and her daughter-in-law Ruth, headed 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: 19b-21)

The name Naomi means “beautiful and pleasant,” yet she changed her name to Mara, which means “bitter.”  I used to view Naomi’s response in a negative light and thought perhaps she needed a new attitude rather than her new name.  However, after drinking from the cup of difficulties in my own life, I have come to appreciate Naomi’s ability to be sincere with this community of women.  She didn’t put on a smile and pretend everything was alright.  Clearly, everything was not alright.  Naomi was REAL.  She confessed that she had responded to her incredibly difficult, life-changing circumstances with bitterness.

Let’s not minimize her pain and deny her the time to work through that pain, even if it means going through a season of bitterness.  Instead, may we learn from Naomi’s example of being real, admitting life can be difficult, as circumstances don’t always work out the way we hope.

Personally, I find great encouragement from the women in my life who are real and can admit the condition of their heart; the ones who know they need a Savior because they can’t do it on their own; the ones who know their Savior is bigger than their circumstances; the ones who trust by faith that the Savior is working on them right where they are – right in the midst of their bitterness.  (Or grief, depression, disappointment, sadness, frustration, anger, loneliness, confusion, or sorrow.) You fill in the blank.

 

©2013, Gloria Stucky