Barren
Barren
Ruth 1:3-5
But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
I can’t claim from my own experience to empathize with the enormity of the barrenness currently overwhelming Naomi’s life, but due to being a human in a fallen world, and due to sharing a common relationship with suffering and seasons of deep despondency, I feel for her. And I’m convinced that had Jesus been standing among the mourners at Mahlon and Chilion’s graveside, we’d hear His weeping above all the others.
Put yourself in Naomi’s sandals here, friend. It’s difficult enough that she had to uproot her life ten years earlier, leaving behind friends and family members, even if the choice was ill-advised from a spiritual standpoint to begin with. Yet at least she had her husband and her sons to lean on. At least she had others who could till the earth and strike business deals and provide economic stability, and she also had the even more satisfying prospect of being a grandmother—of watching her family line continue in an unbroken strand. Oh, but that drought that withered and chewed up Judah’s pasturelands all those years ago was only a faint breath compared to this scorching wind. Every little green thing in her spirit has suddenly vanished. All those evergreen trees that provided shade in years past, all those grapevines that dotted spring’s horizons with purple and red hues, all those fireside evenings filled with laughter and love and the simple bliss of companionship, are browned and grayed and trodden down by the cruel stampede of death’s reapers. And she’s left to wander in the bleak barrenness that only parents who’ve felt the horror of outliving their children can understand.
But like Jacob of old, who wrestled with Almighty God in a season of abject poverty, Naomi has the same way out if only she’ll take it. “I will restore the years the locusts have eaten,” the LORD whispers through her sorrow. But, like all prodigals, like all beggars, like all thirsting souls in need of refreshment, she must go back home and rebuild from there.