‘Call me, Bitter.’

That was what Naomi said when she lost her husband and two sons. She said, ‘Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter’ (Ruth 1:20). And in her deep grief, she tried to drive away those she loved.

God’s exiled people experienced the same in nature. They came to a spring, but ‘they could not drink its water because it was bitter’ (Exodus 15:23). They backed away from it and rejected it, because bitterness has a way of driving others away.

But God stepped into both situations. God gave Naomi a grandson through the very person she tried to reject. He cured the water for his exiled people, the very water they refused to drink. And God will do the same for us. Let’s not drive others away in our great sadness and bitterness of heart, for it is often through these people that we find God’s hope.

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To begin again…

I was 27 and didn’t know how to cope. I thought my life should revolve around pleasing others, but I was never good enough. I could never be enough. Finally I had a breakdown. Sure, I acknowledged that God was all-loving. I agreed that he had created me unique and beautiful, but I didn’t know how to live it.

All pretending stopped as I lay there shivering on my bed. I could no longer be strong, brave, or even good. It was just me and God, and to my astonishment, he still loved me. And he came to me, just as he has come to millions of others, “to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 63:1). I would live again.

Six months later I went back to work, and it took another three years to recover, but, I finally knew who I was – BELOVED.

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