Loving Your Neighbor as YourselfНамуна

Example #4: Ruth loved her mother-in-law

Naomi was in a quite hopeless position. She had moved to a neighboring country with her husband and sons, but all three of them had died. Naomi concluded: “the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). Left alone with two daughters-in-law, she decided to move back to her home country. Initially, both of the daughters-in-law wanted to go with her. But when Naomi stressed that she couldn’t offer the women a hopeful future at all, only one of them stuck to her plan.

This woman was Ruth. She was determined not to leave her mother-in-law alone: “May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you” (Ruth 1:17). And she fulfilled her promise. She left her family and her country and settled with Naomi in Bethlehem. There she worked hard to provide for their material needs.

Other people saw how much Ruth had sacrificed for her mother-in-law, and blessed her for it. They considered Naomi very lucky with “your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons” (Ruth 4:15). One man especially noticed her: Boaz, a wealthy relative of Naomi. Eventually he married Ruth, they had a son, and so the story of two poor but loving women has a happy end.

How can you express love towards family members, especially if they are going through difficult times?