They left Bethlehem—the House of Bread. It was too hard. It was too bleak. Moab looked good. There was food in Moab. It was enticing. Naomi, Elimelech, Mahlon, and Chillon packed up and started the trek away from Bethlehem because of a famine in the House of Bread.
How can you stay when it hurts? The children are hungry. Elimelech can’t get work. Moab beckoned. Moab had food. Moab was the place to go. It didn’t matter that Moab was an enemy of Israel, worshiped Baal, and engaged in immoral behavior.
So they left. They walked away from their support, their people, and their God. And they walked into grief and loss. They never imagined strange women would become part of their family. Naomi didn’t realize everything she treasured would be wrenched away. The difficulties in the House of Bread seemed overwhelming, but Naomi had no idea how desolate it would be after she left.
For the one who walks away, there is something they cannot avoid: God’s persistent invitation to come back. Naomi heard the call. Bethlehem beckoned. Moab had brought only pain and loss. She packed her bags to return to the House of Bread. She directed the foreign women, now her only immediate family, to return to their parents. One obeyed and returned. However, one refused. She held on like a burr. “You’re stuck with me; where you live, I will live; the God you serve, I will serve.” From the pile of Moab debris, Naomi retrieved a daughter who gave up her past to walk into a new future. It was the one piece of comfort Naomi salvaged from a broken life.
Bethlehem saw them coming. Where was the husband? Where were the sons? Who was the strange woman? Is that you, Naomi? “Oh no, don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara. I went out full, but I am returning empty except for her. I’m bitter and broken, but I am coming home and bringing Ruth with me.”
How many people have departed from the House of Bread? How many have faced significant losses after they left? And how many eventually realized their situation and the need to return home? So, they return, sometimes carrying a fragment of comfort from a strange land. That single piece of comfort that may have felt out of place in the past, has the potential to be transformed into something beautiful by God.
For Naomi, the person tagging behind her became the joy and rejoicing of her heart. She became Naomi’s legacy, an integral part of the Messiah’s genealogy. Ruth is one of the few women explicitly mentioned in the lineage of Jesus.
God can transform heartache, broken pieces, and losses into a beautiful life.
If you’ve left the House of Bread for a strange country, lost everything good and wholesome in your life, and returned with only a piece of that unfamiliar place, don’t despair. God can use those experiences and the pain to birth something remarkably beautiful.
There is joy again. What you bring back, even though it is not a glorious part of your history, God can turn it into treasure, and it can become part of a great legacy. The call to come home never dies. The ingenuity of the Almighty can bring joy from sorrow—peace from the storm. You can live again. You can laugh again. You can experience God’s amazing power to transform the broken into beautiful.
