From Broken to Blessed: Ruth’s Story and Ours

The story of Ruth begins in famine, death, emptiness, and bitterness. Naomi even renames herself Mara — “bitter.” Yet by the end, Ruth and Naomi are full again: food on the table, family restored, and even a place in the line of the Messiah. Their lives move from brokenness to blessing.

It’s tempting to take this as a neat template: “Stick with God and your life will turn around.” But we know it’s not that simple. Not every bitter widow is comforted. Not every lonely young person finds a spouse. Not every loss is restored in this life. It can be painful to sit on the sidelines and watch someone else’s story wrap up neatly while yours still feels unfinished.

So what do we do with Ruth? One way is to read her story as a metaphor for Israel. Israel too was broken by famine, exile, and disobedience. And yet, when the people practised hesed — covenant love and loyalty to God and one another — they tasted blessing again. In broad terms, it’s not wrong to say that our life in Christ moves from broken to blessed as we trust him and live faithfully among his people.

But the truth is still richer. Every day we are moving from broken to blessed. We die daily to self, and we enthrone Christ daily and rise with him. This is not just the story of our life as a whole — it’s the pattern of every moment of discipleship. As Cyril of Jerusalem reminds us: “The cross is not only Christ’s, but also ours. For every man who has been crucified with Christ must keep the cross daily, enduring trials for His sake.”

Here the Eastern Orthodox have another helpful image: Pascha. In the West we tend to divide Easter into stages — death, resurrection, ascension, then Pentecost — as if life moves past suffering into blessing. But the Orthodox proclaim the whole cluster as one cosmic mystery: Christ’s death, descent, resurrection, and victory all bound together. Pascha is not linear; it is the continuous mystery of life through death.

“Broken to Blessed.” It’s faithful to Ruth, and to the entire biblical arc.  But he also blesses us through brokenness. So whether your day — or your whole life — feels bitter or full, can you see Christ in the mystery? For in him, even in dying, we are already rising.