Carolyn Custis James is the wife of Frank James the president of RTS Orlando. Last December Frank’s brother died while hiking on Mt. Hood. She shared her thoughts on what happens when your worst fears come true.
To explore this James looked at the experience of Naomi and Ruth and pointed out that Ruth is a female version of Job. She lost not only her husband but her two sons and in the patriarchal culture in which she lived this was the worst kind of tragedy to befall a woman.
Naomi returns to her homeland with her two pagan daughter-in-law including Naomi. They are widows and have no voice. In India widows have been so devalued historically that they were often burned.
James pointed out three lessons we can learn from these women:
1. Emptiness is a part of the journey (Ruth 1:13, 21)
The issue is not that God is absent but that he is present but does not act as we want him too.
“Noon has darkened…and where are you in this darkness?…Or is it not your absense in which I dwell but your elusive troubling presence.†- Nicolas Wolterstorff
2. Emptiness is purposeful
It is most often the hard times that are the most meaningful times in our lives.
“The gospel offers a different view of suffering: in suffering we enter the depths, we are at the heart of things; we are near to where Christ was on the cross.†– Eugene Peterson
As Christians we have largely lost our ability to lament. Christ lamented and that is our permission to do the same. We need to lament and wrestle with God because when we do this we grow in our relationship with God. When you are a Christian it does not mean you have all the answers it may mean you have more questions and those questions are not bad. We never stop grieving loss and we need to let people grieve and struggle. This shapes us in a way that drives us nearer to Christ. Naomi is angry but she moves towards God in her anger.
God will not settle for superficial relationships with his children and so he brings us to the place where we are stripped of everything but Him alone.
“The world has a hole in it now. I shall not look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry eyes could not see.†- Nicolaus Wolterstaff
God heightens our sensitivity to His grace through our suffering.
3. Emptiness is productive
There is great fruit that comes from these seasons of life.
Ruth gives her son to Naomi to replace her lost son. She raises him on the theology that she learned in her suffering. He grows up learning about the God who did not hold back his mercy.
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