The book of Ruth is a short story with deep pain and a happy ending. We love a happy ending. We assume happy endings are appropriate encouragement and meaning for the deep pain. Which is why, in moments of grief, we offer happy ending morals to people.

That’s often not helpful.

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Yesterday, I talked to you about a woman who named herself Mara. It meant bitter. It’s how she introduced herself to people she hadn’t seen in a decade.

“You used to call me loveable, Naomi. But now God made my life bitter. So call me that.”

In the five sentences of her speech to her old friends, she says that God made her life bitter, that God brought her back empty, that God afflicted her, that God brought misfortune on her.

Naomi sounded like people you and I know, people I talk to, people I’ve been from time to time.

I want to spend time writing about the whole book sometime, writing about Naomi sometime. I don’t have time to write the whole study right now. But I didn’t want to leave us hanging after yesterday.

So here are some notes about Naomi from the rest of the story of Ruth.

God didn’t scold her.

God didn’t fire her.

Naomi and Ruth continued to get up in the morning and go to bed at night.

Naomi helped Ruth make sense of the customs and opportunities in Ruth’s new country.

Ruth found protection.

Boaz and Ruth found blessing.

And Naomi, eventually, had a baby put in her lap.

And she was grateful.

Naomi expressed understandable grief, frustration with God, and grandmotherly delight and gratitude.

And God acted and allowed and loves. And put on a body that descended from that story.