At some point in this journey, a quiet question shows up: Who’s my family now?
Maybe your family of origin still loves you but doesn’t get you. Maybe your church family was the first thing to go. Maybe you’re sitting in a room full of people who share your last name and feeling completely alone.
During my divorce, when I was estranged from my biological family, I was cared for by my tiny church family, who mowed my yard, brought me food, and even helped me pay my bills. They weren’t my biological family, but they became the family I leaned on and trusted when I didn’t have anyone else.
We’ve spent four weeks on leaving, letting go, wrestling, and facing the people who hurt us. Now we turn toward belonging. And the Bible has a story about exactly this: two grieving women who had lost almost everything, who made each other family, and who found God faithful in the making.
Why Ruth?
Ruth isn’t named in Hebrews 11. But Hebrews describes her perfectly:
“They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth… they desire a better homeland… Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.”* (Hebrews 11:13–16)
Strangers seeking a homeland. That’s Ruth. And that may be you, if the faith and family you were raised in no longer feel like home.
And notice that last line. God is not ashamed to be called their God. If someone has made you feel like an embarrassment to the family or the church, hear that. God isn’t ashamed of you.
(One more connection: Hebrews does name Rahab (11:31), and Matthew’s genealogy names Rahab as the mother of Boaz, the man Ruth will marry (Matthew 1:5). The roll call is closer to Ruth’s family than it looks.)
The story
Naomi, an Israelite, moves to Moab with her husband and two sons to escape a famine. Her sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Then Naomi’s husband dies. Then both her sons.
Three widows. No sons, no land, no safety net.
Naomi decides to go home to Bethlehem, and she urges her daughters-in-law to go back to their own mothers’ houses. Orpah weeps, kisses her, and goes home. Notice that the text doesn’t condemn her for it. Naomi blesses them both.
But Ruth “clung to her” (1:14). And then she says the words that have outlasted almost everything else in the book:
“Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”* (Ruth 1:16)
Ruth leaves her country, her people, and her gods, just like Abraham in Week 1, and binds herself to a grieving mother-in-law who has nothing to offer her. Family by choice, not by blood.
Naomi’s honest faith
When they arrive in Bethlehem, the town buzzes: Is this Naomi? And Naomi says:
“Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.”* (Ruth 1:20)
Naomi means “pleasant.” Mara means “bitter.” She renames herself in her grief, and she blames God to God’s face in front of the whole town.
And the book never scolds her. No one tells Naomi to cheer up. God doesn’t strike her down. Naomi’s bitterness is just part of the story, and God keeps working in it. Like Jacob last week, her honesty with God is a form of faith.
The word that holds the whole book
The Hebrew word at the heart of Ruth is hesed. It’s hard to translate. It’s loyal love, covenant kindness, love that goes beyond what’s required. It’s the word the Bible uses most often for God’s own love.
Here’s what’s striking. In the entire book of Ruth, God acts directly only a couple of times. Mostly, God’s hesed shows up through people. Through Ruth’s loyalty. Through Boaz’s generosity when Ruth gleans in his field.
Boaz even blesses Ruth this way: may you be rewarded by “the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge!” (2:12). Later, Ruth asks Boaz to “spread your cloak over your servant” (3:9). In Hebrew, “wings” and “cloak” are the same word. Boaz prays for God’s wings to cover Ruth, and then God’s wings arrive through him.
That’s how God builds family. Often, through people who show up with hesed.
An honest complication
Ruth was a Moabite, and the law of Moses said no Moabite could enter the assembly of the LORD (Deuteronomy 23:3). By the rules, Ruth was out.
Yet Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of King David (Ruth 4:17) and appears in the family tree of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). Scripture itself is having a conversation here, and in Ruth, hesed widens a circle the rules had drawn small.
And one more honesty: not everyone finds a Ruth right away. If you’re lonely in this season, I’m not going to pretend that’s easy. Chosen family can take time. Start with one. And until then, remember that God is not ashamed to be called your God.
So what do we do with this
Notice who already shows up. Your Ruths may already be here: a friend, a neighbor, one relative who gets it. Naomi was Ruth’s in-law. Chosen family can include some of the family you were born into.
Offer hesed first. Sometimes the way to find your people is to be someone’s Ruth. Show up for someone else who’s lonely.
Let it be small. Ruth and Naomi were a family of two. That counts.
God of Ruth and Naomi,
you are not ashamed to be my God.
Spread your wings over me, and send me my people. Amen.
*Scripture quotations are from the NRSVue.
The Greenhouse Preview
This Friday in The Greenhouse: how to find your people when community itself feels unsafe, and a prayer for being held under God’s wings.
The Closing Question
Tell me in the comments: Who has been a Ruth to you, someone who said “where you go, I will go” when it would have been easier to leave?
P.S. This Sunday on Streams of Grace: how God’s wings show up through people. Come breathe with me.Sign up here!