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Someone has said a good mother in-law is not nosy, not biased, and not jealous; rather she is kind, a peacemaker, knows when to come and go, is as wise as an owl and harmless as a dove. Some of these traits were in Naomi, a mother-in-law we read about in the book of Ruth. She was living in the country of Moab. Her husband and sons had all died. She and her two daughters-in-law lived alone with no support. She heard that the famine in her homeland was over, so she decided to go back home. Her two daughters-in-law were going with her. While on the way, she urged them to go back home to their parents; hopefully to find new husbands. One daughter-in-law, Orpah, left Naomi to do just that. The other one, Ruth, chose not to go back home. Her words to Naomi are unforgettable. “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” Ruth clung to Naomi, not for what she could get, but for what she could give her mother-in-law. God rewarded her loyalty. She met Naomi’s relative, Boaz; they married, and she became an ancestor of King David, and of the Christ, our Savior and Lord.
