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August 5, 2008
The Blessing of Children and Grandchildren
Read Ruth 4:13-16
Oh, I LOVE this! Ruth has the baby, but all the women turn to 'grandmother,' Naomi, and pronounce blessings on her boy! "Then Naomi took the child" I have tried this with my daughter, Sarah. She brings her son, Benjamin, to my house - and I gather him up like he's like my baby - So, of course he can have Cocoa Puffs if he wants them - or whatever! It's biblical, right?
Maybe not. But there is something deep and wonderful and so JUST the way the Lord works about this passage. Ruth, in determining to stay with Naomi and to cast her lot with the God of Israel and the people of Israel, gave up her best hopes of marrying again and having the family she had lost. Naomi clearly had no hope of descendants, never dreaming when she first returned, that Ruth, a foreigner, would find a husband among the people of Israel (even from Naomi's own family!). Naomi was bitterly resigned to being poor and lonely, with no one to care for her or to carry on her family story. Remember that I gave her a little credit for shaking her fist at God. At least she knew with whom she should be in conversation, however bitter, about her life. And Ruth and Naomi keep choosing the path of faithfulness to what they know of God. They plod on. They have no reason to hope for much, except subsistence. But God, incredibly, abundantly, reverses all their expectations.
He fills Naomi's lap again! What is sweeter to a grandmother? But more, he assures her a family to care for her in the future. Her family, in fact, will live on. Her friends find in her a reason to praise God. They see his loving character in her story. And they bless him with prayers that the baby boy's life will be important to his people. These prayers, as we will see, are abundantly answered.
This scene requires us to learn another Yiddish word: kvelling. It is the opposite of kvetching, or complaining. Kvelling is swelling, bursting, with pride and pleasure too deep for words. Naomi is kvelling in this passage. God turns our kvetching to kvelling, over and over. In the language of the scriptures, he turns our 'mourning to dancing,' our 'tears to laughter,' and our 'sorrow to joy.' (Isaiah 61:3; Jeremiah 31:13) He 'restores the years the locust has eaten,' (Joel 2:25) meaning that when our lives feel ravaged and stripped of all hope of strength or success, God can turn it all around. He can and he does. More than "we can ask or imagine." (Ephesians 3:20)
- In what ways might you feel ravaged and empty?
- Take a moment to realize that God is reminding you he can do more about it than you can imagine.
- What does plodding on - daily faithfulness - look like in this area?
I pray that each of us, in precisely this difficult place, will practice faith, and faithfulness, and will one day have a story that will cause others to see God and to praise him.
Marcia Lebhar
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