The summer before my senior year of High School (1982) I lead the music for a VBS in a friend’s church. There I met a man, in passing, who said to me “Ruth, when I look at you I think, Ruth”. Somewhere deep in my heart I knew this was more than a simple ‘you look like a Ruth’. That night I reread Ruth to see if there was something more to this man’s words. Nothing really stuck out at me. So I put all of these things away in my heart trusting that if this was of God I would understand in time.
Time passed, I married Gary, we moved 8 times in 9 years and I thought to myself “this is what “Ruth” meant; I would need to be willing to follow Gary anywhere God led him at the sacrifice of being close enough to my family to see them even once in a year. Okay, Lord, so be it.” And I suppose that wasn’t entirely wrong but as I was thinking about the events of yesterday (4/22/09) another facet became clear.
I have an unusual relationship with my mother-in-law. I get left out of most mother-in-law conversations at work because everyone knows I have a wonderful mother-in-law. With no disrespect to my own mother who mothered me very well, I have the relationship with my mom-in-law that I always wished for with my own mother, but wasn’t to be. And as I took her for some medical tests yesterday and took care of her a bit after I looked at her through the eyes of a daughter more than a daughter-in-law. I always have, but most of the time her actual children are around to care for her this way – today I was privileged to be her child.
My mother has been gone for 5½ years now and I grieve for her; but now, more than ever before this beautiful woman is my mother and I will forever be her honored daughter. Where ever she goes I will go, her people are my people and (it has always been) her God is my God – may nothing but death separate us (Ruth 1:17). Just call me Ruth.
Ruth 1:16b: “Where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”
Welcome!
- Kathy Unger Marshall
- Dallas, GA, United States
- As a wife, mother of three and a full-time employee Kathy is well acquainted with the struggles to maintain balance, a right attitude, contentment and health in the midst of chaos. All the hectic times in her life, including seven major moves and five minor ones have served to reinforce her dependence on the only anchor she has found to hold her steady through the years; Jesus. Kathy writes of her personal journeys through the pages of scriptures, deserts of dryness, showers of blessings, the darkness of depression and the bright days of joy. She speaks of all she has learned about herself and her God in these journeys with the hope that her experiences will serve to encourage other women, who are fighting these same battles to stand strong.
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