ELIZABETH TURNAGE | CONTRIBUTOR
Imagine this story: A woman’s husband and her son are killed in a car-jacking. After her husband’s death, the 75-year-old widow discovers that he had mortgaged all of their assets to invest in a real estate deal gone sour. Once the wife of a wealthy lawyer, the older woman now finds herself homeless and bankrupt. Her only option is to return to the small hometown and the childhood home she had sworn never to revisit. Despite her protests, her son’s fiancée insists on joining her in the move.
If this synopsis sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the plot of Tyler Perry’s movie Ruth, which is based on the book of Ruth. Naomi, the main character, like the biblical character, is an older woman whose heart has become bitter through grief. She resents God and the community who tries to show her His love.
When Grief Embitters
The biblical Naomi, like many aging women, has suffered multiple losses over the course of her life—the death of her husband and both her sons, the loss of both her homeland and her adopted home, the loss of financial provision and security. When she is forced to return to the home she left years ago, she laments to the women who welcome her, “Do not call me Naomi (pleasant); call me Mara (bitter), for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). Naomi sees the Lord’s sovereign hand in all her losses—family, financial, and home, and is not afraid to name them honestly to God in lament.
Many older women can relate to Naomi. As we age, we face a barrage of limitations and losses—the death of a husband or child, the loss of independence that comes with declining vision or mobility, the loss of community when we must move from the home we’ve owned for almost half a century. Add to that the seeming loss of purpose and meaning that came from vibrant work and ministry, and it’s not hard to see why older women might feel that the Lord has dealt bitterly with them….
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