Ruth

God often speaks to me when I’m working in the garden. Maybe pulling weeds is such great visual imagery for what I need to hear that He can’t resist! Or maybe He finds the kneeling posture suitable for talking. Whatever His reasons, I love it when I hear Him there.

The topics of our conversation typically concern scripture, or things happening in my life. But last week something unusual happened. I began singing a new song. I knew this was a prompting of the Spirit because I am neither a poet nor a song writer. Nonetheless verses kept playing in my mind, along with a simple melody. Then ideas too abstract for words began flowing.

I found I could not stop singing the first few lines, so I fleshed out the song as an act of contemplation (and so I would have more words to sing!) I am posting the end result, despite its shortcomings as poetry, because I felt the Spirit’s pleasure in revealing the Father’s favor toward Ruth. The Father rejoices when His children love one another, and we do that well when we sing each other’s songs. The more I love His saints, the more I love Him, and the more I marvel at the beauty of this story we share. So here it is, a song for Ruth.

 

Sing with me, O Ruth, the song of the Redeemed.

Of those bereft, oppressed, condemned, land ransomed for the dead.

Aliens and poor, glean from the threshing floor

Under our Lord’s mantle find a place to lay our heads.

 

Sing with me, O Ruth, the song of the Beloved,

A daughter of the nations whose eyes are like the dove’s.

Leave your father’s house for the Lord desires you,

Beautiful in kindness, crowned with glory from above.

 

Sing with me, O Ruth, the song of Motherhood.

Chosen is your line bear the King of all the earth!

We who do the Father’s will are called His mothers too,

In joy we sing with Mary, the one who gave Christ birth.

 

Sing with me, O Ruth, of the Olive Tree

A wild shoot grafted purposely to Jacob’s holy root.

Gentile and Jew drink from Messiah’s veins,

And bear witness to each other of His endless grace and truth.