ODE TO FAIR DAUGHTERS OF GOD

 

Among valiant sons of God

Who were chosen rulers to be

Stood the daughters so fair

They echoed through eternity.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Devotion of the Heart by Greg Collins)

A WOMAN OF DEVOTION

 

 

One of the great women of the Old Testament who stands out for her devotion to God is Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel.

 

Not being able to bear children is a difficult cross to bear for many women in any age but it was especially so for Hannah. She was barren in a time when ‘it was a great reproach to a woman among the Jews’(Clarke, Bible Commentary, 2:207). So many women must have suffered a sense of worthlessness at such a time because of this trial. No fertility treatments, no IVF….

 

It was considered a woman brought great honour to her husband by giving him children, especially sons. At an age when women had little else by which to distinguish themselves, child bearing was of utmost importance. Hannah's suffering from her condition was made even more difficult by the second wife of her husband, Peninnah, who tormented her and made her miserable by 'ostentatious exhibition of her children' because Hannah was favoured by their husband (Old Testament Student Manual Book 1, p 267). So many questions about this situation but we won’t go there…..

 

As the family went up to Shiloh to the annual festival to offer sacrifices at the tabernacle, Hannah took matters into her own hands. She knew there was only one place to go and only one God who could possibly know the state of her heart and who could alleviate her suffering. In her unwavering faith she made a covenant with the Lord that if He would give her a son she would bring him up as a Nazarite and dedicate the child to God’s service for the duration of his life (1 Sam 1:11).

 

This was an amazing act of selflessness. That she was a woman with great faith and love for God is clearly seen by her praise of Him following Samuel’s birth (1 Sam 2:1-10).

 

Hannah did bear a son and she called his name Samuel, meaning in Hebrew 'heard of God' (Keil and Delitzch, Commentary, 2:2:25). This name served as a reminder to both Hannah and Samuel of the special circumstances and commitments relating to his birth (Old Testament Student Manual Book 1, p. 268).

 

When Samuel was weaned at 3 years of age as was the custom, Hannah honoured her promise to God and brought him to the priest Eli to live and serve in the sanctuary for the remainder of his life. One cannot imagine how Hannah, who longed for a child, had the fortitude to hand him over to live with an old man and replace the carefree days of his childhood with service in the tabernacle, seeing him only once a year (1 Sam 2:20). But she had cause for another concern. Eli was not only an old man but he had failed in his parental responsibilities with his two sons who caused all of Israel to sin because of their immorality and bad example as priests (1 Sam 2:13-36).

 

So bad was the situation that ‘a man of God’ was sent to Eli to pronounce the Lord’s curse upon his house because he took no action to correct the abomination in his family and the tabernacle. It seemed by this failure that Eli honoured his sons above the Lord (2:27,29). This is in stark contrast to Hannah who had only 3 years with Samuel and trained him to honour and serve God as a child better than the adults around him (1 Sam 2:18).

 

The God of Israel knew how Hannah would feel giving up her son into someone else’s care and He did not leave her heart empty. He filled it to the brim and rewarded her for keeping her word. Hannah went on to bear three more sons and two daughters. What does this tell us about the God we worship? No sacrifice we offer is overlooked by Him….

 

I had a memory from my pre-earth life once. I was sitting with the Saviour and He was saying to me: “I will save you and I will make up for everything.”  Indeed……

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Hannah and Samuel by Elspeth C. Young)

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)

I WILL FOLLOW THEE

 

I will follow Thee my God and My All

When I can see no more;

I will trust in Thee

When all hope flees;

I will praise Thy name

When I am left without ease.

I will nurture the seeds of my faith

With tears of my affliction;

Yet will I look up to heaven

And believe in Thy throne;

I will trust in the strength of Thine arms

To lift me and carry me home.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Autumn's Embrace by Ivan Guaderrama)

A SYMBOL OF REDEMPTION

 

This is a story of a convert who became a symbol of redemption in Israel. This convert was a woman and her name was Ruth.

It is said by oral tradition that women in ancient Israel lived with a hope that the Messiah would come through their line (Clarke, Bible Commentary, 2:207). This is the privilege that was given to Ruth from Moab even though she had no blood of Israel running through her veins.  She was a convert to the Lord, God of Israel ‘under whose wings she had come to trust’ (Ruth 2:12).

When her Israelite husband died and left her with no children, Ruth became one of the lowliest of the earth, devoid of security and livelihood. Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi also became destitute losing her husband and both of her sons. When Naomi encouraged her daughters-in-law to return to their kin and their ‘gods’, they wept. Orpah left, but Ruth remained, with these words on her tongue: “….whither thou goest, I will go; and whither thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” (Ruth 1:16).

Right from the start, Ruth showed characteristics of a true Israelite by covenant (Romans 9:4; Galatians 3:29) and she chose to remain so. She returned to Judea with Naomi, to Bethlehem no less (Ruth 1:19), and she consented to a ‘levirate’ marriage with Naomi’s next of kin, as was the custom in Israel. Through a levirate marriage, the woman was provided with children and restored to security and society. Here is where things become interesting. The Hebrew word for a man who would step up to this responsibility was GO’EL. The King James Version of the Bible translates it as simply ‘kinsman’ but the proper and literal meaning of GO’EL is ‘redeemer’ (Rasmussen, “Introduction to the Old Testament”, 1:157; see also Old Testament Student Manual Genesis – Samuel 2, p 263)

This is how Ruth, a lowly woman of Moab became the symbol of Christ’s redemption: Her GO’EL was Boaz, an Israelite kinsman of Naomi. Boaz became Ruth’s redeemer and restorer of all she had lost. Boaz and Ruth had a son whose name was Obed, who became the father of Jesse, who was the father of King David, who was a progenitor of Mary, who was the mother of Christ……

Consider for a moment how Christ redeems us from our fallen state and restores us to the presence of the Father, and grants us eternal posterity through His power of exaltation. The Saviour affirms His role as the GO’EL when He refers to himself as the bridegroom and us, Israel, as the bride (Matthew 25:1-13; D&C 33:17; 65:3; 88:92; 133:10). He is the greatest GO’EL of all….. the Redeemer, the Restorer, the Hope of Israel, the Rock of our Salvation.

The winds of tribulation 

Like feathers lift to the sky.

They find You there

ever waiting to answer our pleas;

To restore that which is lost,

To renew that which is broken,

I stand amazed at Your love, 

Your care:

Your everlasting token.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Ruth In the Field of Boaz by Alexandre Cabanel 1868)

 

 

HOW GREAT THOU ART

 

How commendably patient Thou art

With the slow progress of

My proud heart.

There is none like Thee,

My Saviour and my King;

How great Thy wisdom,

How great Thy mercy,

How great Thy love,

That fills my joyful heart,

How very great Thou art!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Hope Deferred by Chris Brazelton)