She's Back!

“The women said to Naomi, ‘Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer.’ Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him.” Ruth 4:14,16, 18

Boy do I feel silly! Here I have been thinking throughout this Bible Study that my parallel was to Ruth…you know, sacrificial living…caring for her in-law…blah, blah, blah. Well, the joke is on me! In a strange ‘spiritual turn of events’ it seems that the Holy Spirit has impressed upon my heart a new understanding as it relates to my life. You may call me Naomi.

I have always known God in my family and introduced God to my own children much like Naomi. I was very comfortable in my spiritual life and went through the motions of living a Christian life knowing I was a ‘people of God.’ It wasn’t until God began preparing me to enter into a season of famine – cancer and Alzheimer’s in my family. These illnesses took me into other lands forcing me to face foreign situations and depleting the fullness of my life. Like Naomi, I have been emptied through this wilderness and have lost a lot. Also like Naomi, there were times when you could have called me ‘Mara’ (bitter). But, thankfully, I trusted God and knew that there was hope for a future. I knew He was my kinsman-redeemer in all situations no matter the circumstances. I feel that God is placing blessings in my lap that He had for me all along. He had to wait until the motivation of my heart was more pure and my hands would care for them according to His purpose.

Like Naomi, there needed to be the rains of adversity, a season of humility, for the beautiful bouquet of blessings to bloom. Our seasons of have and have not’s are accomplishing the same work – building our faith and growing us into the people God wants us to be. With each season the walk may get tougher but our faith will get richer. An abundance of blessings will follow these seasons if we will just look higher than our situation and allow God to carry us. Many times the LORD will withhold blessings and rewards until the motivation of our hearts are ready to receive. Blessings are meant to be shared from the heart with others as God has shared them with us from His heart.

It is sort of like the song that states, 'It's not love until you give it away!' Blessings should be pass through's - not where the buck stops.