Scripture: Ruth 1:20 – “She said to them, ‘Call me no longer Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.’” (NRSVue)
Does suffering change who you are? I think the answer is complicated. I think that we cannot answer no. Our experience with physical scars and emotional trauma proves that we are never quite the same after we experience something terrible. There can be positive change that can come out of it. But at the same time, I think that there is a core to us, a kind of dignity, that suffering, no matter how horrid, can never destroy. We can find our truest selves on the other side of misery.
One of the things about the Old Testament that is often lost in translation is the use of names. For example, on Sunday we read the ending of the Book of Job, and my poor deacon had to read this passage. “He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.” Those names are meaningless to us. But in Hebrew they mean “dove,” “cinnamon bark,” and “horn of kohl” (kohl is a black eye cosmetic like mascara). They represent peace, sweetness, and beauty, things that Job lacked in his suffering. The importance of these names in the narrative, so clear to the original audience, can be lost upon us thousands of years later.
Sometimes characters change their names, like when Abram becomes Abraham or Jacob becomes Israel. In the Book of Ruth, the woman Naomi, whose name means “pleasant”, moves from her home to a neighboring kingdom, where she loses her husband and son and is forced to return as a desolate widow. When she returns, she says, “Call me no longer Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.” As she indicates, Mara means bitterness, implying that her pleasant life has become bitter because of all she lost.
But the funny thing about the name “Mara” is that it does not stick. No one calls her that. And as the story moves forward, Naomi discovers that her life is not all bitterness. She finds a home with her daughter-in-law Ruth and eventually her husband Boaz. Her life becomes pleasant again.
Naomi’s “time” as Mara certainly changed her, but it did not destroy who she was. She was always a kind and enduring woman of faith. Clearly her life was never as carefree as it was in the beginning of the story, but neither is it destroyed. We are more than the scars on our bodies or the wounds on our souls. And God sees and remembers that. Don’t let one bad thing, no matter how bad, make you forget how much you are loved and valued in God’s eyes.
Prayer: Through the storms of life, I pray that God remembers my name. Amen.
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