The 4 Choices of Difficult Days

By Cinda Adams Gaskin

I was surprised at what God revealed to me during this particular reading of the book of Ruth. For the first time I saw that this book offers four different attitudes we can choose from when life’s difficult circumstances arise.

Naomi – The Pleasant One

Like me, Naomi had a pleasant character as long as everything was going well. But, also like me, she became bitter and pushed people away when it looked like she had lost everything. As we know, Naomi’s husband, Elimelek, died. And, after her sons married, they too died. Then, to add insult to injury, there was a famine in the land of Moab, where she and her husband had moved from Bethlehem in Judah. Naomi had heard that there was food back home, so she and her two widowed daughters-in-law started off with her on the return trip home.

Similarly I lost my “everything” about 10 years ago. I was married, had a beautiful home with what was then my prize—an in-ground swimming pool. We had an attractive finished basement, tons of storage space, and something that even topped the pool—private Christian schooling for our two daughters. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had chosen to be “circumstantially pleasant.”

In 1995, I had the first in a series of five annual miscarriages that lasted until year 2000. That’s right. I had five miscarriages in as many years. During that period, I used a series of costly fertility treatments—ranging from giving myself fertility shots to invitro-fertilization, all to bring about what I believed was God’s will—a son to add to our family.

Later, when things began to go wrong in my marriage, I thought that by intensifying my prayers, adding fasting to the mix, and seeking godly counsel, things would surely shift back into the right direction. That didn’t happen. We were divorced in 2002. And, sadly, my ex-husband died very shortly after our marriage was officially over.

Mara – The Bitter One

After close to ten years of one tragedy after another, I responded to my life the way Naomi did in Ruth 1:18-22 when she exclaimed, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

The pleasant demeanor of Naomi had turned into such abject bitterness that she began referring to herself as bitter. Similarly, I underwent a 180-degree transformation from my formerly pleasant attitude to such profound bitterness that my only focus was on looking sadly back at how great my life had previously been.

I believe I chose bitterness because it was within my control. I could choose to “wear” my grief and victimization. I couldn’t choose miscarriage or divorce. Those things simply happened to me, but I could choose to look only backward for the good things my life had to offer. This gave me something else to do besides picking up the pieces and moving forward. Like Mara, I was blind to seeing any hope in my tomorrows that came close to being as good as my yesterdays had been.

Orpha – The Retreating One

During that perplexing season in my life, one of the thoughts that plagued my mind was going home—that is, returning to New York where I felt that life would suddenly make sense to me. I believed that I had mistakenly bought into the myth of an idyllic suburbanite world, and had found out the hard way that that world was simply a crumbling, un-count-on-able façade. I grew up in New York. I understood the straight-talking, no nonsense way of life there. My life in New Jersey, with a manicured lawn and all the bells and whistles of a life I thought I’d never live—marriage, a home, and private schooling for my kids—had become one huge disappointment.

Perhaps that’s how Orpha felt when the idea came to her that she could simply “go home,” and run away from the life of faith in God that stood before her if she actually followed Naomi and Ruth back to Bethlehem.

Like Orpah, each of us has the choice of going “back” to the old familiar places in our lives—the things that we did and the places we frequented before we came to Christ. That’s the one thing I love about God, He gives us not only free will, but the ability to exercise the power of choice. The key is to make the right choice—the godly choice when facing life’s difficult days.

Thankfully, I didn’t return to my “Moab,” in the Bronx. I chose to stay in New Jersey and hold out for God to turn my life around by faith. This is in no way to boast or to criticize Orpha’s choice, but moving away from my life of godliness—my church, my Christian friends, and my hope in God—simply wasn’t the choice for me.

Ruth – The Faithful One

The fourth attitude we can adopt when life’s challenges come knocking at our door is to be faithful, like Ruth. She was faithful to her mother-in-law, Naomi. She didn’t abandon the family she had adopted simply because life had dealt her an ugly hand.

Ruth also showed her faithfulness by seeking a way to bless the household she shared with Naomi in Bethlehem. She went out to glean in the fields of Boaz. She was faithful in listening to the counsel of Boaz about what to do while she worked. And, Ruth listened to Naomi when she told her to go down to the threshing floor and lie at the feet of Boaz.

God rewarded Ruth’s faithfulness by initially increasing her earnings, by eventually giving her a new husband in Boaz, and by ultimately blessing her with a son that would forever be part of the lineage of Jesus Christ.

In my case, the blessings have not been as far-reaching, but they are profound just the same. My choice of an awkward and tentative faithfulness has been met by God with His own divinely perfect faithfulness. He has given me a lovely apartment where I have raised my two daughters and educated them in a great public school system, surrounded by great friends.

In God’s infinite wisdom, He led me to the Women’s Bible Study at Monmouth Worship Center where He began the healing process. He also led me to a very small church, where the congregation loved on me and tolerated my “Mara” until she yielded to the faithfulness of Ruth. God beautifully used a myriad of resources to restore me spiritually. And, the legacy that my daughters are now able to live into is to choose faithfulness and pleasant trust in God over bitterness and hopeless retreat.