Ruth Meets Boaz

The story of Ruth and Boaz is a fairytale romance of two lives being interwoven by the wisdom of God. On the one hand we have Ruth – a poor widow who finds herself in a new land experiencing a strange culture. On the other is Boaz – the noble gentlemen of kind faith and charming strength who wins the heart of a lady who comes to be loved and accepted by her community – her new family so to speak; and in the middle of it all, like the God-inspired match-maker, we have Naomi, who forgets the sorrow of losing loved ones as she brings together two lives that had always been destined to meet. It is a tale of journeying, exploring, and embracing, and of many individual tales being knit together into a legacy of all that God can create when we trust Him and when we give ourselves to love others in many different ways.

The heroine of the tale, of course, is Ruth. How can one not admire her courage and graciousness in following her mother-in-law, Noami, stepping into a whole new world which she made her very own. The lady from Moab made Israel her home. At the critical moment when she could have returned to her homeland (at Noami’s bidding), she clung to Naomi and said:

 

Entreat me not to leave you,

Or to turn back from following after you;

For wherever you go, I will go;

And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;

Your people shall be my people,

And your God my God.

Ruth 1:16

The beauty of the story is in the bitterness of loss becoming the sweetness of finding; the despair of sorrow becoming the celebration of joy; the ache of loneliness becoming the solace of belonging. The story of Ruth is one of those sweet, soul-stirring stories that paints a lilting love song that promises kindness, love, loyalty, friendship, family, healing and perfect endings in God.