Happy Mother’s Day!

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. — Exodus 20: 12

As I gaze over the landscape of Scripture in my mind’s eye, mothers are everywhere. From Eve, the mother of us all, to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Everywhere in Scripture are stories about mothers and the influence they have on history. One of my favorite mothers is told about in the book of Ruth.

Naomi is enduring. She travels with her husband and two sons to a foreign land because of a famine. While there both of her sons take wives from the Moabites who live there. Then tragedy strikes. Naomi’s husband dies. He is followed in death by their two sons. Naomi is left alone.

Well, not entirely alone. The women her sons married are now part of her family. But what does she have to offer them?

She decides it is time to go home to Bethlehem. Her daughter-in-laws prepare to go with her but she discourages them. Why take them from their family and the only land they know? Stay here, she says. Orpah agrees and bids her farewell, but Ruth is unwilling to be parted from Naomi.

Now think about that for a moment.

Like so many stories in the Bible, we have to think deeply about what is going on to understand. What would make Ruth want to stay with Naomi? It is not fun or adventure that is offered. There is only danger and suffering ahead. It is not an easy life that Ruth is looking for. Naomi can promise her nothing. Instead, it must be something about Naomi herself that binds Ruth to her.

As we see in the story, Naomi is a woman of faith and wisdom. She must have also been a woman of great inner strength and love. There is something else about her, too. Ruth does not say what it is with words, but she says it with her deeds. She will not be separated from Naomi. Ruth says to her,

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

(Ruth 1: 16b-17)

That is devotion. Yes, it speaks to Ruth’s character, but it also speaks to Naomi’s. Naomi was an extraordinary mother.

I am blessed to have many Naomi’s in my life. To all of them; mother, wife, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, and mother of my grandchildren, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day.