{"id":1253,"date":"2019-11-27T04:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T09:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shop.honestreflections.net\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2019-11-03T14:42:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T19:42:00","slug":"im-thankful-for-ruth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2019\/11\/27\/im-thankful-for-ruth\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019M THANKFUL FOR RUTH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cFor wherever you go, I will go, and where you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.\u201d\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Ruth+1%3A16&amp;version=CSB\">Ruth 1:16 CSB<\/a><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God used the book of Ruth in my life to help me understand His love for me.&nbsp; She is my favorite woman in the Bible.  The verse above I cross stitched on a beautiful piece of linen,&nbsp; The scene was an old attic with an open trunk, across the trunk lay an antique wedding dress, waiting to be worn by a new bride.&nbsp; I prayed over every stitch for the husband I have today, years before I met him.  We\u2019re going to do a whole month in the book of Ruth next year (I think). 2020 is going to be focused on growing through love.&nbsp; As I told Heather, I think Ruth is the greatest love story ever told.  My mother used to read her story to me at  bedtime as a child, that is how I met her.  I\u2019m not going to give too much of her story away today, we\u2019ll delve into it more later.&nbsp; But suffice it to say, she set an example I wanted to follow.  Maybe I should say, her mother-in-law did.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Naomi, Ruth\u2019s mother-in-law, was from Bethlehem.\u00a0 She moved with her husband and two sons to Moab when famine struck the land.\u00a0 Ruth marries one of Naomi\u2019s sons, both the father and sons die.  This is where we meet these two in today\u2019s verse.\u00a0 Naomi is heading back to Bethlehem, she\u2019s told Ruth to stay and marry someone else.  Ruth\u2019s reply is today\u2019s verse.  And Ruth lived up to her word, it wasn\u2019t an easy thing to do.\u00a0 I\u2019ve romanticized Ruth in my head.  I\u2019ve romanticized spending all day out in the hot sun, picking up leftover wheat to eat.  I\u2019ve romanticized not having indoor plumbing.  What I haven\u2019t romanticized is the love that is so evident in the book\u2019s chapters.\u00a0 The love that Ruth demonstrates to God, to Naomi and to her future husband are goals to strive for in today\u2019s world.  She shows us how to love others, and how to love them well.  She is one of the few women in the Bible who is described as \u201cnoble\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Ruth+3%3A11&amp;version=NIV\">Ruth 3:11 NIV<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Naomi\u2019s love of God, drew Ruth into a relationship with Him.&nbsp; Ruth\u2019s love of God helped me know and love God.  I\u2019ve studied her story for years, her and Naomi both have taught me many things.&nbsp; They continue too, every time I read their story.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today I am thankful for Ruth.&nbsp; What are you thankful for?<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cFor wherever you go, I will go, and where you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.\u201d\u00a0 Ruth 1:16 CSB God used the book of Ruth in my life to help me understand His love for me.&nbsp; She is my favorite woman in the Bible.&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2019\/11\/27\/im-thankful-for-ruth\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I\u2019M THANKFUL FOR RUTH<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1254,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions\/1254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}