The full story of Ruth and Naomi can be found in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament.
Somewhere between Moab and Judah, somewhere along this dirt road she and her daughters-in-law have been walking, she accepted her fate.
She’s an old woman. She sometimes wonders when that happened. Where did the years go? It feels like just yesterday her boys were chasing each other around the fields surrounding their house, giggling and squealing and every so often calling over their shoulders, Mama, look! Watch us!
Now her husband is gone, both of her sons are gone, and she’s about to send her daughters away, too.
She’s been trying to summon the courage to break the news for miles now. In fifty paces, she thinks, I’ll tell them. Then fifty paces come and go. When we reach that tree up ahead, I’ll say it. The tree comes and goes. She loves them so much, like they’re her own daughters. She wants nothing more than for the three of them to settle down in Bethlehem and live out their days together.
But they deserve better than that. They’re both still young enough to remarry, to have children. There’s still hope for their futures. Certainly they shouldn’t waste their most fruitful years shackling themselves to an old, barren woman like her.
In fifteen paces, she’ll tell them.
Orpah stops to take a drink and then passes the waterskin to Ruth. She looks back and forth between her daughters, admiring their beauty, their kindness to one another. Though no blood binds them together, they’ve always treated each other like sisters. She’s so proud of her sons for picking such wonderful women as their wives.
“My beloved daughters,” she begins, voice shaking. She takes a deep breath. “Thank you for traveling with me all this way. You have shown kindness far beyond your duty, and I am more grateful than I will ever be able to say.”
She pauses at the concerned looks on Ruth and Orpah’s faces, and then presses on. “But I can’t ask you to stay with me any longer. Please, return to your own mothers’ homes. I believe Yahweh will show you favor as a reward for your kindness to me.”
Before she even finishes speaking, they shake their heads. They rush up to her and wrap their arms around her neck. “No, Mother. We want to stay with you.”
She pries them away gently, tears gathering in her eyes. “I can do nothing for you. I’m old, too old to remarry, and I can’t bear any more children. But even if I could, could I ask you to wait for them to grow up? No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share, and I will not ask you to. Yahweh Himself has raised His fist against me. You should want no part in my life.”
Orpah wraps her arms around Naomi again, weeping openly. Her tears leave a damp spot on the sleeve of her tunic. “I love you, Mother. Please don’t take my accepting your request as a sign that I don’t.”
“Never, sweet Orpah.”
Together, she and Ruth watch Orpah walk away. “Now it’s your turn,” she tells Ruth. The sooner this is over, the better. She doesn’t know how much more heartbreak she can handle. “Leave this old woman and go be happy. Find a good man to marry.”
When Ruth is finally able to dry the tears from her eyes, she turns to Naomi. There is defiance in her expression. “I will not leave you,” she says. “So don’t ask me to. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die. May Yahweh punish me severely if anything but death separates us.”
Naomi’s heart seizes at her words. All this time, she didn’t allow herself to imagine that either of her daughters, if given the choice to stay or go, would be so loyal to her. It would’ve been too painful to be proved wrong. But now she truly knows the depth of Ruth’s love for her. It doesn’t completely heal the hurt of losing her husband and sons. Nothing ever will.
But it eases the burden just a little.
*
Sometimes the friendships we need the most are the ones we never expected. On the surface, Naomi and Ruth probably didn’t look like the most obvious candidates for friends. Naomi was likely old enough to be Ruth’s mother. They came from different towns, different cultures, different traditions. If not for the fact that Ruth married into Naomi’s family, they may have never even met at all.
But God knows what we need better than we do, and He meets us there—never a second too late.
In her season of deepest grief and loss, Naomi needed a friend. Because of everything she’d lost, her heart had grown hard. “‘...the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty…the Lord has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me’” (Ruth 1:20-21 NLT). Naomi believed God was punishing her for some inadvertent sin, and in her hurt, she tried to push away the remaining few people in her life.
Naomi needed someone to stand by her side—not out of obligation, but out of pure, loyal love. Like Orpah, Ruth could’ve returned to her mother’s family, found a husband, and gone about her life. But she loved her mother-in-law with such fierce loyalty that she bound herself to her by oath. It’s friendships like these—ones where we can so clearly see God’s love reflected in another person—that save us when we’re at our lowest.
Eventually, Ruth marries Boaz, and then through their family line, Jesus—the ultimate Redeemer—would be brought into the world.
Naomi’s life was redeemed through Ruth’s love. “Then the women of the town said to Naomi, ‘Praise the Lord, who has now provided a redeemer for your family! May this child be famous in Israel. May he restore your youth and care for you in your old age. For he is the son of your daughter-in-law who loves you and has been better to you than seven sons’” (Ruth 4:14-15 NLT).
Her bitterness was transformed into joy. Her loss became the sweetest gain. The pain she endured was never God’s punishment—it was the very means by which God would bring restoration and healing to her family.
