Becoming a Compassionate Woman: 6 Biblical Examples Намуна

Ruth: A Compassionate Daughter

True compassion means tangibly expressing love for those who are suffering. Compassion is not just the awareness of another person’s suffering or even a desire to relieve it. Instead, compassion acts.

A compassionate woman recognizes the suffering of others and then takes action to help.

Let’s meet our first biblical example of compassion, Ruth. In the first chapter of the book of Ruth, we discover that Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, were living in Moab when both of their husbands died.

Naomi had fled to Moab with her husband and sons to avoid a famine. But after they arrived and her sons had married, her husband and sons all died.

What a tragedy, right? Without any prospects in the land of Moab, brokenhearted Naomi planned to return alone to her homeland of Israel, where God had now provided food for her people.

In Ruth 1:8 (NIV), Naomi pleads with both of her Moabite daughters-in-law, saying, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me.”

But Ruth loved Naomi, so much so that she felt compassion for her. In an act of selfless compassion and empathy, Ruth decided to stand by Naomi no matter what. She traveled with Naomi back to Bethlehem and settled with herin a foreign country instead of with her own people.

Ruth’s statement of loyalty to Naomi is a true example of love in action: “Don’turge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay.Your people will be my people and your God my God”(Ruth 1:16, NIV).

Because of her compassion, Ruth found favor in the eyes of Boaz, a wealthy man from the clan of Elimelek. Naomi and Ruth had no way to provide for themselves. So in his own act of compassion, Boaz instructed his workers in the fields to leave grain for Ruth to pick up as she walked through.

This provided Ruth and Naomi with the food they needed to survive. Ruth and Boaz soon married and had a son named Obed. God continued to bless Ruth for her compassion, as Obed would become the grandfather of David, the forefather of Jesus.

Just like Ruth, compassion may lead you to leave your comfort zone. It may inspire you to show selfless love and stand by others who are suffering, even when it’s hard. And it just might have a positive ripple effect on your own life too.

Scripture: Ruth 1:1-20