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Sunday, December 20, 2015

Burgeoning Meaning

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.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”  When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. (Ruth 1:16-18).


Today I heard the above words from the pulpit.  But this is not the first time I’ve heard them.  The first was when I was about 10 years old.  Mother had joined other women in the study of the book of Ruth.  Afterwards, I asked her about the study and mother replied with an explanation that included this quotation – “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.”  She spoke the words with a solemnity and awe befitting an absolute declaration of loyalty and devotion.  It is noteworthy mother had left her home in Jacksonville, FL to marry an itinerate Methodist pastor, my father.  For a typically diffident women, this was perforce a natural and irresistible Stanislavski moment.


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