Don't Put A Period Where A Comma Ought To Be!

The sudden gasp caught in her throat at the surprise of how cold the water was when it splashed on her face and ran down the front of her dress. The anger of the moment gave her the strength she needed to pull the large bucket up and over the lip of the well, before setting it precariously on the wells edge. It wasn't a big deal, but these days, it didn't take a big deal to thrust her into a firey ball of anger. With a fling of her head and the stomp of her foot, she looked like an unbroken, wild horse, snorting it's emotional response. She quickly looked around to see if her neighbors saw her so clumsily soak herself, and so quickly fly into her rage. Lord knows she couldn't let the other women see her like that! After all, there was enough talk about her already. "Who was this gray haired old woman declaring her own name change from Naomi to Mara; from Pleasant to bitter?" "What happened to her after she left town with her husband Elimlech so many years ago, that caused her to return a dried up; bitter shell of the woman she once was?" Oh . . . Naomi heard the talk. She knew the comments, the questions and the judgements. But, surely she didn't deserve this gossip. Hadn't she suffered enough? She left Bethlehem full and came back empty . . . and it was Gods doing, she was sure of it! He brought this calamity on her . . . and for what? Could she have changed the fact that it was her husband's decision to leave town during the drought? Could she help the fact that Elimelech hadn't consulted God first? NO! Elemelech promised her it would only be temporary. Could she have done anything about the fact that he decided to pull up stakes, leaving their home, their friends, and their family behind? Absolutely NOT, and that's what ticked her off the most! Why had God judged her so harshly? She didn't have one thing to do with any of the decisions that were made on her behalf, nor any of the calamities that befell her family! She was all but forced into leaving the "House of Bread," Bethlehem, as it was so appropriately named, this little town nestled in the midst of the "promised land." An, empty house of bread, that is, because of the drought! This bitterness toward God changed her apprearance so much, that her family and friends hardly knew her! Look at the passage from Ruth 1:19-21.

"So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, "Is this Naomi?" She said to them, "Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty; why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?"

When we "lean on our own understanding" of our situation (Proverbs 3:5-6) It will always cause us to point the finger of WRONG judgement at God! We often make declarations about God's love for us; God's lack of provision for us; or God's inability to keep His promises toward us. It's in these moments of wrestling with the complexities of earth-dwelling, that we begin to size up for ourselves where God has failed us, and fallen short of our expectations. These judgements are seeds planted deep in our heart, that spring up with a harvest of bitterness. Bitterness changes us into defeated, critical and negative whiners! The kind of people who complain because the ice cream is cold!

Naomi's reality was that yes, she had lost her husband and her sons, a tragic loss for her; calamity had indeed befallen her. But God . . . was in the midst of turning her darkness into light; her mourning in joy; and working together all the clamity the enemy meant for her harm, into HIS glory and HER good! (Romans 8:28) Her problem was that she put a period, where God meant there to be a comma in her life. He was not done yet. He was still working on HIS plan for her life. In fact, we know that God used Naomi to bring about a plan in Ruth's life as well, through which God chose to bless her AND us. For is was through her that eventually Jesus Came to us!

This life offers us many opportunities to give up, to lose our faith, to stop trusting God or to just feel alone and empty. Naomi soon found her reason to rejoice once again. And, although her future didn't make her past go away. It didn't make the sting of the loss of her husband and sons magically disappear . . . it did give her purpose and reason to keep on believing and trusting God and in God's amazing, healing time . . . the pain grew less and she was restored to her former "pleasant" self she had once been. . . turning yet again from Mara to Naomi; from bitterness to Pleasant!