Painting the Picture
Painting the Picture
Ruth 2:11-12
But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”
If God had endowed me with the artistic skill of Da Vinci, I’d set aside my pen and notepad, grab a canvas and some paint brushes, and spend the next few days painting a picture of Ruth through Boaz’s eyes. There’s so much to make of her demeanor and of his joy in seeing it. I’d try to put shape and color to the paradox of Ruth’s beauty, attempting to add form to the dichotomous position of her poverty and royalty, the same way the old Disney artist sketched Cinderella at her loveliest not in glass slippers and shimmering gown, but while singing joyfully in her coarse work-gown as she mopped a floor. I’d make sure to give Ruth deep brown, smiling eyes like my wife’s, with long black eyelashes, too, yet with a thin string of soil rather than mascara outlining them. And I’d give her rosy cheeks, not from blush, but from being out in the sun a little too long. And I’d put faint wrinkles on the edges of her eyes, so that if you looked closely, you’d think you were looking at an old face, a face worn by years of weeping and sorrow; yet, if you pulled back from the painting, you’d see instead a youthful face, one bearing the untarnished light of childlikeness. But, of course Ruth’s smile would have to be the focal point. I’d paint her bottom lip slightly sunken down at the corners, as if weighed downward by an overwhelming lifetime of loss, but then I’d paint the top lip rising upward, lifting the bottom, as it were, to symbolize that her love is a stronger force than the sorrows it carries in tow.
Oh, if we could see Ruth through Boaz’s eyes at this moment, and Boaz through Ruth’s, we’d see all mysteries at once! We’d glimpse the very heart of Redemption’s story—a heart too deep for even Da Vinci to paint.