Unpleasant
Don’t call me Tonya anymore. My new name is Anus. And I worship Satan now, by the way.
If my husband didn’t already know he was no longer teaching in a rural South Dakota school, this early morning announcement by one of his seventh graders jerked him to reality. You teach in the city now.
The name you get when the doctor holds you upside down by your feet and thwacks your backside to see if you can cry is the name someone else wants to call you. (Do doctors still do that? I was, erm, too preoccupied to notice when my boys tore out into the cold.)
But it may not be the name you’d choose.
So it makes me wonder why, when given the chance to choose her own name, a girl would choose Anus. Even if she was planning to worship Satan. (Which she was not.)
For that matter, why would someone named Pleasant up and decide to change her name to Bitter?
That’s exactly what Naomi, chafed and afflicted, broken into pieces by a God she saw as mischievous at best, chose to do.
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Orpah returned to her own people and Naomi, with the friend-like-no-other Ruth at her side, returned home to Bethlehem. Longtime friends recognized her at once, though they hadn’t seen her in years, exclaiming, “Can this be Naomi?“
Rather than receiving their welcome, Naomi snapped at them.
“Don’t call me Naomi, ” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” (Ruth 1:20-21)
Why call me Naomi? Why call her by a name that calls to mind delight and splendor? Why attach to her grace and beauty? Why call her Pleasant?
Naomi saw no need to be called any longer by a pleasant name, not when God had crushed her into dust.
Call me Mara. She would say, along with Westley, “Life is pain, Highness. Anybody who says differently is selling something.”
After the loss of her husband and two sons, she found life bitter, harsh, unrelenting.
Bitterness had so transformed her life that she chose a new name to lock in her new identity.
And in so doing, she asked all those who once thought of beauty and grace when her name left their lips to taste that same bitterness when they spoke to her.
Call me Bitter.
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Naomi, Mara, had possessed — and she had lost.
In her bitterness she blamed God, accusing Him of evil in afflicting her. He once gave her a full life. Now He left her empty.
So blinding was her discontent that she seemed unable to see the fullness God began to restore to her in the incomparable gift of Ruth.
Another, in the face of devastating loss, also saw that the Lord had given and allowed to slip away. But rather than shrouding himself in bitterness, Job erupted into worship.
At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship, saying:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:20-22)
Make no mistake: Naomi’s loss was great.
Holding tight to bitterness, refusing to look back up, made the loss far greater still.
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(RSS and email subscribers, click through for the video. More about “Blessed Be Your Name | WorshipHouse Media“, posted with vodpod.)
Photo: Joshua Tree National Park, Rinske Blok-van Middendorp
More posts on Ruth
What we see only in part, He sees in whole. And when we really get that, we can cast out the Mara in each of us and sing: Blessed Be Your Name.
2010/05/05 at 10:20 PM
Life can be unpleasant, bitter. But, O Lord, never let my heart become bitter. “Though there is pain in the offering” may my soul sing “Blessed be Your Name” – often. I remember singing this one Sunday in service beside a dear friend who knew I was going through a hard time. She looked at me and asked me about the pain in the offering line – could I honestly say that. By God’s grace and through her friendship I was able to say yes. Oh to have a friend like Ruth during the difficult days. God is always worthy!
2010/05/05 at 10:36 PM
I can not tell you what a blessing that video was when you posted it on Facebook. Have said that many times in the last month or so. Still I chose to say Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord. Learning that no matter what comes our way that God has a plan and knows what He is doing. If Naomi only knew what we know now, she is in the lineage of our Savior…its so hard to see that when you lay there shattered and broken and disillusioned.
2010/05/06 at 7:48 AM
Thank you for this line of hope…”If Naomi only knew what we know now, she is in the lineage of our Savior…its so hard to see that when you lay there shattered and broken and disillusioned.”
2010/05/06 at 9:22 AM
Jennifer, seems the seeing is where the transformation can happen. And sometimes it is that trusting Him to see what I don’t. You teach me to see better.
And Nancy, those friends. What a gift He gives in that. I’m so glad your Ruth was there.
Holly, He loves to restore what is broken. Keep choosing to say it. God bless you.
2010/05/06 at 8:49 AM
wait, wait! you left out Naomi’s ending! her joy and final praise ends the story, her life restored by God who never changed her name when He wrote about her! she didn’t know about Jesus, but she did find her hope in God’s love again – and wasn’t that the same thing?
2010/05/06 at 10:34 AM
Yes, Kelly, wait! We’ll get there. Remember who you’re dealing with here? I can only handle a little bit at a time.
I couldn’t go forward until we dealt with Naomi’s bitterness. But soon enough we’ll see her restoration, how He renewed her life and sustained her in her old age.
Promise.
And you are so right. He never changed her name.
2010/05/06 at 11:00 AM
It’s a delicate balance, isn’t it? This holding on so we learn from the past and see what God has brought us through yet still looking up and ahead for what God is still going to do. Refusing to look back leads me to thoughts that I’ll never make it without reminding myself of all God has done for me. And refusing to look forward means I’ll never be what God has for me to become.
2010/05/06 at 9:20 PM
It is so easy to look past the early verses of Ruth and concentrate on the positives. The intro to the Book of Ruth in my old Harper Study Bible includes the following:
“Relating a story from the period of Judges which was characterized by savagery, lust, strife, and lawlessness, The Book of Ruth presents a strange contrast. Instead of war, bloodshed, cruelty, politics, and intrigue, there is love and marriage, simple faith, and the tilling of the land; the common customs of ordinary people as they lived and died amid the turbulence of their age.” Reading that it would be real easy to miss Naomi’s angst.
Jennifer, thanks for the reminder of the importance of looking back and looking ahead. Winston Churchill once said, “The further backward you can look, the farther forward you will see.” Lest anyone think I had committed this comment to memory during Churchill’s political career, I actually heard it quoted on the program, “Criminal Minds”.
Dad
2010/05/06 at 10:23 PM
Jennifer, refusing to look forward and/or back does have to balance with holding on to them — in the same way that refusing to see and live the now must be balanced with getting stuck here. I like your reminder to look back and see what He’s done. I get so far ahead of Him sometimes I forget to.
Dad, I had to read that twice. Usually, for me, “it’s so easy to…concentrate on the negatives. That kind of cracks me up in a way. But yeah, Ruth’s story does give a wild contrast to the time in which it occurred. Even in our crazy days, we live out those stories of beauty and wonder as we live faithfully where He’s drawn us.
2010/05/07 at 6:41 PM