A Different Kind of Good

(Ruth 4:14-17)

I keep returning to her . . .

I love how God fills His pages with the lives and emotions of ordinary people like her.

Like Naomi.

Each time I read her story something different about her take on God and life pulls me in.

Encourages me to look more deeply at my own life.

Today I begin at the end of her story.

In the last verses.

When she holds her grandbaby in her arms.

And life is good.

Just not the kind of good she’d pictured back at the beginning of her story.

When she and her husband, Elimelech, left for greener pastures.

I left here full of life . . .

(Ruth 1:21 MSG)  

Full life, full family, full future . . .

Instead, Elimelech dies. And then her sons.

And with their deaths, her picture of good is reduced to an empty frame hanging at an odd angle from a bent nail.

. . . and God has brought me back with nothing.

(Ruth 1:21 MSG)  

I feel her invitation to sink into a chair beside her and thumb gently backwards through the pages of her life.

From end to beginning, instead of beginning to end.

Because sometimes, when we read our stories in reverse, we are able to see the hand of God at work where we didn’t notice it at the time.

Looking back at what I’ve come to call The Grief Year I see the hand of God all over the process of my healing.

I see His kindness, patience, comfort, and encouragement.

Encouragement which sometimes felt more like a kick in the pants, and I mean that very respectfully, a kick in the pants to get outside myself.

Whether it’s a physical or emotional healing, healing doesn’t always feel good when it’s happening . . . sometimes it’s painful.

But when I look at that year now in reverse, though, somehow the sorrows I experienced there have softened.

Maybe even sweetened in places.

At the end of her story, Naomi opens her arms to accept a good she never saw coming.

A daughter-in-law who’s become her dearest friend.

And a grandbaby.

Life is full again.

She probably didn’t see that coming either.

Friends gather round to bless her and speak words of life over her.

But, reading her story in reverse, I see that her return to life began long before this day.

Her healing was a process. 

A process of setting free her picture of good . . . and opening her heart to God’s picture.

To a different kind of good.

No one is sure who wrote the book of Ruth, but if Naomi had written it, I think she might have ended it like this:

Hold your definition of good loosely. 

God is good.

Even when the good He’s planned for you is not the good you pictured.

Like Naomi, my healing didn’t happen overnight . . . but it did happen.

I feel whole again.

And, instead of sadness for what will never be again, I feel open to what will be.

Open heart, open mind, open arms . . . open to a different kind of good.

To the good God has in mind.

Whatever that turns out to be.

See you in a couple weeks.

Love,