Whenever I consider the book of Ruth, I am always reminded of
my grandmother, “Baba,” who helped raise me from the time I was born until she
went home to be with the Lord when I was 14 years old.
The first reason the book of Ruth reminds me of Baba is
that she donated to her Russian Orthodox church in New York City a large oil
painting of Ruth gleaning in the fields of Boaz (Ruth 2:2-9), which occupied a prominent place on a side wall
in the main sanctuary. This was no small accomplishment and sacrifice considering
her very modest means!
But more importantly, Ruth’s character and life have many
parallels to that of my grandmother. Ruth left her home country to follow her mother-in-law
to a new land and a new life. She left behind her family, customs, and pagan gods for a new country that worshipped the true God, Jehovah (Ruth 1:6-19).
At 16 years of age, my grandmother left her small village
outside the city of Kiev, Ukraine, to follow her husband to a new world in Nova
Scotia, Canada, with an entirely different society, form of government, climate
and customs. The Ukraine was known as the bread basket of Russia because of its
abundance of wheat fields, and farming these fields was the main occupation of
her village. So it is not a stretch to imagine Baba as a young girl, gleaning
wheat from the fields much as Ruth later was allowed to glean in the fields of
Boaz!
In contrast, Nova Scotia was a harsh, unforgiving land,
with bitterly cold winters leading to frequent illness, including pneumonia
that claimed the lives of Baba’s nine children, leaving only my mother who
survived past infancy. Baba’s husband Ivan, who worked as a mining engineer,
was at risk for mining accidents and other occupational hazards that had led to
the death of several of his coworkers.
One evening, Baba’s joy and relief to see Ivan return
safely home from work quickly abated as he told her of an unusual experience he
had while in the mine.
“I’ve seen Jesus, and I’ll be going home soon to be with
Him,” he said.
Two weeks later, at the age of 35, Baba's husband collapsed and died,
apparently from a fatal heart attack or stroke.
Ruth met her husband in her home country of Moab (Ruth 1:1-4), a pagan nation that
worshipped Chemosh, also known as the fish-god, god of stone, or god of Baal.
Chemosh may have been the same false god as Molech, whom the Ammonites
worshipped with infant sacrifices (1
Kings 11:7,33; 2 Kings 3:27).
Ruth’s husband, his brother, and his parents had come to Moab
from the Hebrew nation of Bethlehemjudah, which had been struck by a famine (Ruth 1:1:2). Rather than trusting
God to provide for them at home, they ventured to where the grass seemed
greener, even though it could not have been God’s will for them to assimilate
into such an evil culture (Ezra 10:11;
Nehemiah 9:2; 2 Corinthians 6:17).
Soon tragedy overcame them, as Ruth’s husband, her
father-in-law and her brother-in-law died in Moab (Ruth 1:3-5), yet God had a plan that would work all things
together for good (Romans 8:28),
as we shall see in later posts. Only Naomi, her mother-in-law, and Orpah, her
sister-in-law, remained of her new family.
After Ruth and Orpah were widowed, Naomi encouraged them to
return to their family and old way of life, and Orpah eventually agreed. But
Ruth dearly loved her mother-in-law, and she loved their true Jehovah God even
more (Ruth 1:6-15).
Ruth 1:16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave
thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will
go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and
thy God my God:
Ruth vowed never to depart from Naomi nor from her faith,
and she followed Naomi back to her home town of Bethlehem (Ruth 1:17-19), which (like the Ukraine!) means “bread basket.”
Bethlehem, in God’s chosen nation of Israel was the birthplace of Jesus, Who is
the Bread of Life (John 6:35, 48.
51), so the name is fitting.
Like Ruth, Baba was then faced with an important decision –
go home to the Ukraine and her old way of life, or remain in the new world that
seemed to have treated her so cruelly. She and my mother chose the latter,
although they moved from Nova Scotia to Manhattan’s lower East Side, which had
a growing Russian and Ukrainian community.
Praise the Lord that we are not chained to the evil ways or
false beliefs of the society in which we were raised! God offers each of us a
choice to be made of our own free will – to accept His Son Jesus Christ and His
freely given gift of salvation (Romans
6:23), or to reject Him and be condemned to eternal separation from Him
and everlasting punishment in hell (John
3:18; Mark 9:43-49). We cannot be saved simply because we were
born into a Godly home, nor can we be judged for the sins of our fathers (Deuteronomy 24:16; 2 Kings 14:6).
Once we become God’s children by trusting Jesus Christ as
our Lord and Savior, we can have faith that He will never leave us nor forsake
us (Hebrews 13:5), that He
will always provide for us (Psalm 37:25),
and that He will answer our prayers exceeding abundantly beyond what we could
ever imagine or think (Ephesians 3:20).
Both Baba and Ruth are a testimony to this, as we shall explore next time!
© 2018 Laurie Collett
