Hope: Tragedy

Ruth 1:1-5

For him, it wasn't love at first sight.  As a matter of fact, he looked right through her the first time he saw her.  But it was different for her.  She was smitten the moment she saw him.  It didn't matter that he was a foreigner. She never thought much about racism.  She was too much of a romantic to worry about race.  His mother was wild about her - that was a big plus in her favor.  She won over both his parents before he ever really took a second look at her, but the death of his father lit a flame under him and before she knew it, she was betrothed.  Her friends weren't happy he was a Hebrew boy, but again, she didn't care.  She wanted out of her loser town in her loser country and he promised to take her to Israel as soon as the famine had passed.

But years passed and though her love for him grew, she wasn't able to give him a child.  But they were young - her mother told her worry would make it worse, so she threw herself into caring for her husband and learning about his people and his God. The more time she spent with his mother, the more excited she was go go to Israel.  She was learning the language, cooking the food and hearing the law from her mother-in-law and her husband was so proud of her.  She longed for the day she would return to his hometown, see the land he had spoken of so fondly, see the home he grew up in and watch as he would build their own home.  But most of all she wanted to meet his people.  They were her people as well now and she longed for the day when she would meet them all.

Then the unimaginable happened.  Death came to the family.  A double blow.  Her husband and his brother, gone.  When the news came from the field of the accident, she felt her knees give way and the next thing she remembered was waking up in her bed, two days later.  She floated through the funeral, as if watching a play.  It all seemed so unreal.  

What made it worse was the reality that not only was her husband gone, and her brother-in-law and of course, the father-in-law, but they never conceived the little ones that would be her future.   The men of the family were gone, and with no future progeny to care for, she was left trying to hold two other women together.  There was little time for her to grieve.  

But in the quietness of her bedroom, reality was starting to sink in.  In one afternoon, she had lost everything, and now she had overheard her mother-in-law saying that when the days of mourning were done, she was heading back to Israel. Alone.

Husband - gone.

Family - gone.

Future - gone.

Hopes and dreams - gone.

Her new God - well, some things were worth fighting for...