TO BE LIKE THEE

 

Had I the choice

To rest in Paradise,

Or live in this dismal world

And sacrifice all that is in me;

I would choose the latter always

Dear Saviour

So I could be like Thee.

- Cathryne Allen 

(Art: Light of Glory by Christ Brazelton)

A NOBLE LIFE

 

Some months ago I received an understanding that made sense of one part of my life. It was given to me to understand that opportunity of self-sacrifice was offered as a choice in pre-earth life to those who wanted to become like Christ. It meant that someone else’s life and well-being would matter more than one’s own. I could see that Celestial Kingdom will consist of people who care about others more than they care about themselves. That’s being Christ-like.

Yesterday, I made a connection to this principle at a deeper level. I had maintained for a while now that it is wrong for children of single mothers to feel responsible for their care in their old age. I maintained we are a burden around their necks that would prevent them from pursuing their own lives. I saw it as something unhealthy when in reality this is the view of the ‘me, myself and I’ world we live in today.

This is what opened my eyes. I was speaking to a close friend who is also a single mother. She was telling me of her daughter who was recently faced with a choice to create a new life for herself away from her. She chose to stay to care for her instead rather than pass her onto someone else’s care. This girl also intends to move to another state to care for her father in his old age if that ever becomes necessary. My friend said her daughter was “100% Ruth”. I saw how wrong I had been in my assumption of what is right in such a situation. It also opened my eyes to the wider view of the 5^th Commandment to ‘honour thy father and thy mother’.

I wrote about Ruth yesterday and how her choice to remain with her mother-in-law Naomi put her on the path to becoming a symbol of redemption in Israel through her levirate marriage to Boaz. What else I see now is her Christ-like self-sacrifice which rewarded her for her noble life.

Ruth's story begins in Moab, her home-land, where she married Mahlon, one of the sons of an Israelite couple called Elimelech and Naomi, who had fled from their hometown of Bethlehem because of famine and came to Moab, a gentile country east of the Dead Sea. Another Moabite woman by the name of Orpah married Chilon, the other son of that family. Neither of the women produced any children before the father and both sons died leaving the three women destitute.

 

Ruth's story is a prime example of how you can go from nothing to everything if you live a life of sacrifice and faithfulness. When the famine abated Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem and entreated her daughters-in-law to remain in Moab and return to their families. Both of the women wept at the suggestion wanting to follow her but Orpah consented after further encouragement from Naomi while Ruth refused to abandon her aging mother-in-law who faced a life of uncertainty without offspring and opportunity (Ruth 1:15-17). And here begins a life dedicated to caring.

 

Ruth accompanied her mother-in-law to Bethlehem and there gained a reputation of a virtuous woman in Israel. This is a true convert….The entire city of Bethlehem knew how good she was and told Naomi that Ruth was better to her than seven sons (Ruth 3:11, 4:15). I am a convert also so this touches me to the core….

 

As the poor in Israel were accustomed to do, Ruth offers to go gleaning the barley fields being harvested. Gleaning was in effect gathering any stalks of barley that fell from the harvesters' hands and that were left on the field for the poor to gather to save them from starvation. Being new in the area, Ruth, unbeknownst to her, chose a field that belonged to Boaz, a wealthy relative of Naomi's husband, but not just any relative. Naomi identifies him as the 'next kinsmen’.

 

This is where Ruth’s sense of duty and care comes into play. Ruth, a young woman does not seek a man closer to her own age and of her own liking to marry and get on with her life, as the women in our day would do, she instead heeds the counsel of her mother-in-law and approaches Boaz to lay claim to a 'levirate marriage'. As the 'next kinsmen' it would be his duty to marry the widowed Ruth and provide her with offspring. This duty would have fallen to her husband's brother had he remained alive.

 

What is even more interesting is that Naomi could have laid this claim herself but Naomi was too stricken in years to bear more children. By Ruth marrying and bearing a son, she provided a way for both women to be cared for in their old age. Lucky for Ruth, Boaz was a good man and was impressed that she was following the Israelite family law in seeking a rightful husband rather than going after her own selfish desires. He regarded her proposal as 'a proof of feminine virtue and modesty by offering herself as a wife to an old man like him rather than going after young men’. (Ruth 3:10,11)

 

Ruth, a converted Gentile, came to Bethlehem empty but was filled in every way. She went from nothing to everything. Boaz married Ruth and they had a son, Obed who was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David, who was a progenitor of Mary, who was the mother of Christ (Ruth 4:17-22). By giving birth to Obed, Ruth brought honour again to her mother-in-law who was left childless: "And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it. And the women, her neighbours, gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed...." (Ruth 4:16,17). Thus by her life's choices Ruth became a symbol of selfless love to be emulated by all the daughters of God.

 

I take my hat off to people who care for their aged parents in our day.

 

I personally know one modern-day Ruth. Her name is Kimberly. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Ruth by Sue Killingsworth)