Call Me Mara

The women of Bethlehem barely recognise her. Ten years earlier Naomi had left with a husband and two sons, going to Moab because there was bread there and none at home. Now she walks back into town with a Moabite daughter-in-law and nothing else. When the women ask if it is really Naomi, she tells them not to use that name. Naomi means pleasant. She asks instead to be called Mara, which means bitter. The Almighty, she says, has dealt bitterly with her. She went out full and the Lord has brought her back empty.

It is a startling thing to say out loud, and the narrator lets her say it without comment. There is no rebuke, no hurried reassurance. The book of Ruth is honest enough to let a grieving woman name her grief and to attribute it, as she does, to God. She is not denying his sovereignty. She is pressing on it. If he rules over everything, then he ruled over this, and it hurts.

Many believers have been taught to hide this kind of speech. We learn to say that everything is fine, that God is good, that we are trusting him, and all of that is true. But the psalms are full of Mara. Lament is a form of faith, not the absence of it. Naomi still speaks of the Almighty, still comes back to the land of promise, still walks to Bethlehem rather than staying where her sons are buried. Her bitterness is addressed to the God she has not abandoned.

And notice the last line of the chapter. They arrived in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. Naomi cannot see it yet, but the story is already turning. The fields are full. A kinsman is nearby. The emptiness she names is real, but it is not final, and God is at work in the very season she calls bitter.

If you are in a Mara season, you are allowed to say so. Say it to God. Say it to the people who love you. Then keep walking toward Bethlehem. The harvest has begun even when you cannot see it from the road.