A Restorer of Thy Life

The Story

Years earlier, Naomi had left Bethlehem during a famine with her husband and two sons. In Moab, her husband died. Then both her sons died. She came home with nothing but her widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth.

When the women of Bethlehem saw her, they said, Is this Naomi? Naomi means “pleasant.” She told them, “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara.” Mara means “bitter.” “I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty.”

But God wasn’t finished. Ruth went to glean in the fields of a kind man named Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s husband. Boaz married Ruth, and the Lord gave them a son.

The same women who had heard Naomi’s bitter words gathered around her. “Blessed be the LORD, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman.” This child, they said, “shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age.” And your daughter-in-law, who loves you, is better to you than seven sons.

Naomi took the baby and held him close.

They named him Obed. He grew up to be the father of Jesse, who was the father of David, Israel’s greatest king.

Reflection