for over a year i "walked" with esther. i feel like i came to know her as i spent probably hundreds of hours studying or writing or just thinking about her in a project that became crown of stars.
last fall i began to "walk" with ruth. her story almost seems a deep a contrast to esther's story as one can get. no beauty contests, no kingdoms to save, no razor-thin moments of life and death. as i wrote last year:
"this biblical story is about tiny, small events. a woman who converts to a new religion. who follows her mother-in-law when her husband dies. who travels to a new land. and then gets up every day and harvests the grain reserved for paupers and widows. and she does it again and again. until one day she proposed to a man. they get married and have a baby."
"Similarly, Ruth’s simple and consistent acts of faithfulness have Kingdom-size ramifications. And have you noticed she was not some long-time, uber-religious believer who earned a spot in the God-story, even the lineage of Christ? Far from it. She was just a young woman doing hard things because she believed it was what she was called to do. We don’t hear this in her words, but we see it in her actions. Her faithfulness is not bright and shiny, her work not award winning or perfectly planned. She is simply following God’s lead, taking the next right step.
Like Ruth, we cannot see the whole of our story, or of The Story. We aren’t meant to. But we can follow God’s lead, knowing that our yesses make a Kingdom-size difference, even when no one sees. . .Your small and steady acts of faithfulness are being used in big and beautiful ways in the kingdom of God."--SheReadsTruth
i love, love, love the imagery of ruth gleaning in the wheat field. picking up a little bit, consistently, day after day. i've written about this concept here before. i hope that the tiny bits of straw truly can be turned to gold.
i have learned and am continuing to learn lessons from my walk with ruth. during education week i bought a beautiful painting of ruth--one i had never seen before. i starting crying when i saw the original and the artist and i talked about our shared love of ruth. i also, finally bought that esther painting, at a deep discount at the byu moa store. someone had it custom framed and never picked it up. i felt like it was waiting for me.
i'm grateful for the time i have spent with each of these women.
i have shared a little snippet of the beginning of ruth's story, midnight harvest, here
and i'm sharing a little bit more today here.
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