Follow the Thread: Grief, Grit, and God’s Kindness
Following the Thread: Ruth 1
Blog #2 – A Story of Grief, Grit, and God’s Kindness Through the Eyes of Naomi
🧵 Subtitle: She renamed herself Bitter, but God never stopped calling her His.
A friend snapped this picture of our lovely Harbor City women at the kick off for our summer series in Ruth! So thankful for these women and how much they love God’s Word!
If we were sitting across the coffee table today—coffee in hand, maybe kids crashing trains or spilling juice nearby—I’d want to talk about Naomi.
Not because she’s the star of the story. But because she’s the one I can’t stop thinking about.
Ruth might be the namesake, but Naomi is the one who haunts me in the best way. She’s the woman who lost everything—husband, sons, stability, identity—and still limped back toward hope.
She’s the woman who had every reason to believe she was forgotten by God… and still couldn’t bring herself to forget Him.
She’s the woman who—like me—sometimes feels like her life is too bitter to share.
And I just want us to sit with her for a minute. Not rush past her pain. Not reduce her to “the bitter one.” But see her.
Because if we do? I think we’ll see ourselves too.
The Woman Who Lost Her Name
One of the most gut-wrenching literary moves in Ruth 1 happens quietly: in verse 5, the narrator stops calling her Naomi.
It’s subtle, but it’s a thread worth pulling.
Naomi—whose name means “pleasant”—is called “the woman” instead. As if her identity is slipping away, thread by thread. And by the time she gets home, she leans into that loss: “Don’t call me Naomi,” she says. “Call me Mara”—Bitter.
Some fault her for this moment. But I see incredible honesty here. It’s not just lament; it’s faith that God sees her pain. She’s not writing Him off—she’s wrestling. She still calls Him “Shaddai”—Almighty.
Because deep down, even in her bitterness, she believes He’s sovereign. She just can’t make sense of the story yet.
The Woman Who Wept and Walked
This journey back to Bethlehem? It wasn’t a stroll. It was 30 to 50 miles of rugged terrain, likely over 7–10 days, with little protection or food.
She wasn’t dragging her daughters-in-law along selfishly. In fact, her plea for them to go back isn’t faithless—it’s selfless. She loved them enough to release them. To grieve with them. To want more for them.
When she says in the CSB, “No, my daughters, my life is too bitter for you to share,” I feel that. I’ve had moments where I believed I had nothing of value to offer the people around me. That I was more burden than blessing. Naomi goes there.
And yet—she walks home anyway.
She walks toward a God she doesn’t fully understand, in a land that might not welcome her, with grief on her face and dust on her feet. That’s courage.
The Woman Who Prayed a Broken Prayer
Before Ruth’s famous vow, Naomi prays: “May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to the dead and to me… May the Lord grant each of you rest.”
It’s a stunning moment of grace and faith.
She’s praying hesed over these women—covenant kindness. She doesn’t know it, but she’s praying the whole arc of the story. Because God will show them kindness. And rest. Through Ruth. Through Boaz. Through barley and boldness and redemption.
God heard her prayer—uttered from a broken place—and answered it in a way she never could’ve imagined.
That moves me to tears.
Because I’ve prayed from that place too. When the words don’t feel enough. When I don’t know if I believe what I’m asking. When hope feels like too much to carry.
The Woman Who Got It Before We Did
When Naomi finds out Ruth “just so happened” to glean in Boaz’s field, she doesn’t chalk it up to coincidence.
She praises the Lord.
This, from the woman who just renamed herself Bitter.
This, from the woman who trudged home empty.
Because that’s what grief does—it tells you the story’s over.
But Naomi sees the golden thread peeking through.
Seeing Naomi at the Coffee Table
So let’s not reduce her to a literary foil or theological footnote.
Let’s see her: a woman in a patriarchal culture, navigating deep pain and loss, brave enough to go home, bold enough to name her sorrow, and faithful enough to call God Almighty—even when her hands were empty.
She embraced Ruth’s covenant. She wept with the women who loved her. She later sent Ruth to Boaz with a plan to draw that kindness forward. And by chapter 4? She’s holding redemption in her arms.
This woman is not bitter.
She is brave.
She is beloved.
And she is proof that even when we lose our name, our hope, or our sense of purpose—God never loses sight of us.
So here’s to the women who walk home anyway.
Who wrestle with God in the dark.
Who pray broken prayers and cling to the thread of kindness they hope is still being stitched in.
Who don’t need to be the hero of the story—just faithful enough to return to the One who is.
Naomi, I see you.
And I want to be more like you.
And if you’re somewhere in chapter 1 right now—me too.
Let’s keep following the thread.
