Shortly before leaving for Haiti, I asked the Lord to give me His Word for me for this month, and He led me to the book of Ruth. Honestly, not entirely sure why, and I was a little skeptical just because it’s one I’m pretty familiar with so I wondered if it was maybe me just picking something at random. But choosing to take a step of faith, I’ve committed to poring into and meditating on that book for this month.
The past few days, I was in chapter 3, and by my third day on it I was, quite frankly, bored. I just felt stuck and hard and dry, so I begged Papa to speak to me before reading.
And He reminded me that Ruth is a love story. A love story between an outcast girl with nothing to offer and an amazing redeemer with everything to give. And chapter 3 is where the climax of that love story really is, when Ruth risks the only thing she really has left – her reputation – with no promise or expectation of what will happen and Boaz responds beyond what she probably could have imagined.
It’s a beautiful, terrifying, perfect love story. It’s my love story. I am a lost, un-belonging girl with absolutely nothing to offer, falling in love with a Redeemer who IS everything. Jesus.
But all stories have conflict and obstacles, especially if it’s any good. I’m choosing to believe that Papa is writing a pretty FABULOUS love story for me, so it only makes sense that there’s going to be some rough seas.
In an odd, baffling kind of way, I’m in this place of simultaneous pain and joy. Joy because I am so flipping in LOVE with Jesus, and the way He is walking me through my first month of the Race. But pain because there are some things He wants to walk me through that I just do not want to. There are places of my heart and my past that He wants me to visit so that He can redeem and restore the brokenness buried there, but that way is hard and difficult and just straight up excruciating. But I need to and I want to, in order to experience fuller joy and greater freedom.
And I know that that is what He is calling me to. Ruth literally risked all that she had at the feet of her hoped-for redeemer (v. 7-8). Can I do the same? Can I risk the parts of me that I so fear losing and lay it down at the feet of my already-Redeemer? Because He’s already told me how it will end. He will restore what I’ve lost and more, filling me up with so, so much more than what I was afraid of losing.
I choose yes. In this moment. And I will continue to fight to choose to say yes in every following moment, because it will be a battle – every moment of every day. It’s not going to be daisies and butterflies, but it’s going to be worth it and it’s going to be incomparably beautiful. I believe that.
Please continue to join me on this journey through your prayers and encouragement and giving. Thank you & love you all incredibly, in Christ! (:
