Around my senior year of high school, I stumbled upon Ruth when looking for stories of women in the Bible. I already knew about the Rachels and the Marys, but I hadn’t found a woman who was really the main character of her story.

The book of Ruth is about a woman who loses her husband, takes care of her mother-in-law Naomi, and gets remarried to a man in another city who gave her a job. This may make us wonder, ‘why is this important?’ or ‘how did this survive in the Bible after so many revisions?’ But we have to understand that she did not have any visible miraculous help or guidance. She is, to put it bluntly, pretty normal. She is just a kind and faithful person who reflects God’s love to those around her.

“But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” Ruth 1:16-17

In Ruth’s time, if a woman had no man to take care of her, she would become a poor beggar, relying on the charity of the people around her. Ruth knows that Naomi, a woman with no husband or sons left, would be nothing without family. So Ruth promises to never leave her side and to care for her, just as God would do for each of us.

There were no heavens parting, no angelic message, no trumpeters or harpists; just a faithful person who knew that it would be wrong to ignore a person in need.

Today, there are a lot of struggles surrounding us, from disease to racial tension to every day anxiety. It is hard to figure out how to ease this suffering because these problems just seem too big. But, Ruth earned her spot in the Bible by finding someone in need and caring for them in the best way she knew how.

What we can learn from Ruth is that a person doesn’t have to have some spectacular revelation or world saving idea, sometimes it is just about knowing that we have to take care of those around us, and that’s how we can serve God. 

Sydney Langley is a Jubilee Team Member here at Ferncliff this summer. Read more about the Jubilee Team here.