Ruth 1:19-22 (ESV)
So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
Naomi was at her wit’s end here. She was down and out, and wasn’t able to see past the hurt and pain that she had experienced. Naomi felt like God had turned against her and forgotten her. Have you been here before? This is a deep, painful, and exhausting place to be in life and can be all-consuming at times. Have you asked God why you are going through it? We can see in today’s reading that Naomi, too, wondered why she was going through such difficult times. We know the story of Job and how He conversed with God asking Him “why,” for all the loss he experienced, and we even see Jesus asking God if there was any other way for His plan to be made complete without Him having to go through with the beatings and dying on the cross for us.
It isn’t wrong to wrestle with “why” something happened or is happening, but we cannot get lost in that endless abyss. Life is messy, it’s difficult, broken, full of unknowns, pain, and heartache. We know that this is not where the story of a believer ends though, and even in the midst of any
seemingly impossible circumstance you end up going through, I hope you can see that. God is sovereign. God is the ultimate provider, and we know that for those who love God and are called according to His purpose, He is working all things together for good (Romans 8:28).