The Blessing of a Sticking-Point

A husband dies. A famine strikes. A decade passes. Then a son dies. And another. And what remains? A woman so essentially altered, an identity so shattered, that she changes her name from Naomi ("pleasant") to Mara ("bitter"). And her two daughters-in-law - Ruth and Orpah, suddenly single and starving, being begged by their "bitter" mother-in-law to return to their homes.

So begins one of the most poignantly brief books of the Bible - and we're not even out of the first chapter yet. The rawness of God's revelation is stunning. No break-it-to-us-easy build ups, no slow boil. Just the bottom-line and three women at the bottom of a dry well with no rope.

Speaking of which, back at our real-life saga: With no food and fewer prospects, Mara (aka Naomi) asks, begs, and finally, commands her two daughters-in-law to return to their own lands, where they will surely find sustenance and husbands. This is one determined mother-in-law, and she pushes Ruth and Orpah to the brink of decision. Orpah, obviously in great distress, plants a good-bye kiss on Mara's cheek and reluctantly returns to her own people.

But Ruth cleaves... Don't rush past it. She cleaves. An archaic word, no modern one can quite match. Ruth cleaves. Right there, in chapter one, verse fourteen, is where Ruth proves her mettle, and earns the title of one of the Bible's most beautiful books. She could tearfully kiss her mother-in-law good-bye and follow Orpah back to the familiar, but, instead Ruth clings, grabs, cleaves.

In other words, Ruth sticks.

And then Ruth speaks.

"Entreat me not to leave thee: for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."

Sound familiar? Those very words are carved in Hebrew across my husband's guitar strap, my wedding gift to him. I've heard the words spoken in many a wedding, and yet, to see them in context, to know they are the vow of Ruth's broken heart to her empty mother-in-law, shocks me to silence.

Because, for most of my life, my default has been not to stick, but to run. To leave when the living gets hard, when relationships become the least bit uncomfortable, when God takes longer than I think my heart can possibly bear, when loved ones die, when prayers seemingly go unanswered, when hopes are deferred through one more winter season. That's when the heart cries: "Where's the nearest exit? I'm sad to go (just like Orpah), but I think I- best- be- leaving now, if it's all the same to you."

And yet. And yet. God is making Ruths out of Orpahs. He's making cleavers out of leavers. The very place in which we it find most difficult to cleave, is often the very place the Lord is longing to bring the greatest blessing to our lives and to those around us. When there's famine in the land, and her mother-in-law is telling her to leave, and no one knows where the next bite is coming from, could Ruth ever imagined being in the blood-line of Jesus the Christ? For this is what God is planning for her. He is famous for causing streams to bubble up in the desert, for bringing dry bones back to life. There is a blessing in a God-given sticking-point.

So Ruth makes her decision, and, Mara, the woman formerly known as Naomi, reluctantly accepts it. You know the story. God starts working. Ruth catches the eye of a good man named Boaz, who stealthily begins to provide for Ruth and her mother-in-law . Overcome by his generosity, Ruth rouses her courage. Witness the exchange: (Ruth 2:9-12)

Ruth: Why have I found grace in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?

Boaz: It has been fully shown to me all that you have done to your mother-in-law since the death of your husband. And you left your father and mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before now. May Jehovah re-pay your work, and may a full reward be given you from Jehovah, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to trust.

In other words, "You stuck, Ruth. You left everything familiar, to travel with a self-proclaimed bitter, old woman, when you could have turned back. Surely, no one would have faulted you for returning to your home, but you - you made a vow, and fulfilled it. You stuck, Ruth. God has shown it to me, and a blessing is coming your way because of it."

When Jesus asked His disciples after a particularly rough patch , "Do you want to leave me too?", Simon Peter piped up, "Where else would we go? You alone have the words of life." In other words, we're sticking with you, Lord, we're cleaving. Let all the world depart, but we stay.

You know the end of the world's greatest story: the disciples stuck, they cleaved to Jesus, and you and I are here today as the result. Ruth stuck, and she became a fore-bearer of Jesus Christ Himself. Who knows what we might give birth to if we begin to believe the blessing of the sticking-point?

For more information about Allison Metcalf Allen, visit themagdaleneproject.com