Dressed to Impress

“Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor….” Ruth 3:3

Our story continues as Naomi encourages Ruth to make a bold move. She sees the opportunity of a future life for Ruth, and gently encourages her to make the shift from widowhood to a life open to God’s new plans. My commentary states that ‘new clothes’ is really a diluted translation for our understanding. In Old Testament culture, a widow would clothe herself in garments that would testify to her loss. It would signal others that she was still in the state of mourning, and in her own time the shift would be made. New clothing meant moving forward and out of the grief process, and making room for the new…a shift we all will be called to make in life. It was a very public and visable decision that marked acceptance and movement into the future.

Today marks the second anniversary of my sister’s death and tomorrow will mark the one-year anniversary of my dad’s death. For me, I feel the shift has come and I am moving forward in God’s grace and making room for healing. That is one of the key issues of healing…the attitude of willingness and the openness of trust in God once again.

I concur with the author of my Bible Study on the issue of the death of a loved one. She writes, ‘Please know that if you have walked Ruth’s exact journey of a dire loss, I am not at all presuming on your grieving process. My simple hope is when God has held us, healed us, and lifted our heads, that we’d be ready to move forward with Him; and though our hearts may always ache, we won’t stay in our mourning clothes forever.’ P. 99.

It wasn’t until Ruth trusted, moved out of the old and embraced the new that her blessings began to emerge. Wearing her old clothes of mourning, Boaz would never have approached her in a manner more than concern. It wasn’t until Ruth went to the threshing floor in ‘new clothes’ that gave her signal of acceptance of God’s new plan for her life. ‘When we’re wrapped in garments of mourning, we’re unavailable for whatever else God has for us. In a sense, we take ourselves out of the game.’ P. 99.

Whether your loss is physical, financial, emotional or some other type we can only wear our old clothes for so long. We must wash ourselves in the Living Water, perfume ourselves with the aroma of Christ and clothe ourselves in the new clothes God has laid out for us.

Wearing our new clothes signals our faith to God that we trust Him with the entirety of our hearts and our lives.