Read
Ruth 1:1-22(NIV)
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Reflect
Mother’s Day is about honouring the heart, sacrifice and the goodness of mothers. The story of Naomi & Ruth affirm that it is not just the birth process that makes some women an excellent mom. Of course, most often we think of those women that have given birth or are mothers by adoption, by marriage, through foster care or some other recognized manner. The reality is that there are so many women who display and offer the love of a mother to children that need comfort, guidance, instruction, care or any of the hundreds of things that moms do for the ones they love.

Naomi was in a foreign land, not by choice but driven there by famine in her own country. There she lost her husband and her sons. This meant that she would have to fend for herself and her own wellbeing. Her willingness to separate herself from her daughters-in-law and free them from any responsibilities was a desire to set them free from any obligations they may have felt to care for her. Naomi says that she is empty and bitter. Maybe she felt unworthy to be a mother to her daughters-in-law. 

Ruth decided she saw enough love and compassion in Naomi that she pledges herself to Naomi in the well-known words of ultimate commitment: “Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” Although it is not implied in the text, I believe that Naomi was such a strong mother figure for Ruth that it elicited that response.

Today we celebrate mothers for all the right reasons. Thank you, mothers, for everything you have done, are doing and will continue to do for us. We do not often enough recognize or thank you for the great examples you are to those you give all of yourselves.

So, to all women who mother us, birth moms, foster moms, adoptive moms and those who mother those who have mothers absent we say:

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU!

Pray
Lord thank you for giving us mothers. Truly that are an amazing breed of people and one of our great gifts in this world. Lord bless our mothers and keep them strong and safe. Amen.