Call me Mara: where is God in my grief?

Where is God?

Maybe you’ve never said it out loud. Maybe you’ve only thought it in the middle of the night, lying awake in a house that’s too quiet. Or in the car after the funeral. Or in church, when everyone stood to sing and you couldn’t get the words out.

You prayed. Maybe a lot of people prayed. And your person died anyway.

Now you’re not sure what to do with God. You still believe, mostly. But He feels far away. Or silent. Or, if you’re honest, like He let you down.

I wonder how many of us carry that question around for months, afraid that saying it means our faith is gone.

If you’re asking where is God in my grief, I want you to hear something first. That question isn’t the opposite of faith. It’s often what faith sounds like when it’s hurting.

And you’re not the first person to ask it. Not even close. There’s a woman in the Bible who asked it so honestly she changed her own name.

A woman who came home empty

Her name was Naomi, and her story is in the little book of Ruth.

It starts with a famine. Naomi, her husband, and their two sons left Bethlehem and moved to Moab, a foreign country, just to survive. Then her husband died. Her sons married local women, Orpah and Ruth. And about ten years later, both of her sons died too.

Think about that. A husband and both sons, gone. In that world a widow with no sons had no one to provide for her, no one to carry on the family name, and no safety net at all.

So Naomi decided to go home. One daughter in law went back to her own family. The other, Ruth, refused to leave her. The two of them walked all the way back to Bethlehem.

When they got there, the whole town was stirred up. The women who had known Naomi years before looked at her and asked, “Is this Naomi?”

And she answered them like this:

“Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty.” Ruth 1:20, 21 (ESV)

The name Naomi means pleasant. The name Mara means bitter. She’s saying, don’t call me Pleasant anymore. That isn’t who I am now. Call me Bitter.

That’s about as honest as anybody gets with God.

Where is God in my grief? What God didn’t do

Here’s what strikes me about this scene. Look at what happens next. If you’ve been asking where is God in my grief, you’re in good company.

Nobody struck her down. God didn’t scold her. The Bible doesn’t add a little note saying Naomi should have known better. Her words are just recorded there, raw and bitter, right in the middle of Scripture.

That tells me something about God. He isn’t afraid of your hard questions. He isn’t offended when you tell Him the truth about how this feels. The Bible is full of people who did exactly what Naomi did. Job cursed the day he was born. David asked God how long He would hide His face. Jesus Himself cried out from the cross, asking why He’d been forsaken.

Grief counselors have a word for this kind of honest crying out. They call it lament, and they’ve found it’s healthy, not harmful. Pushing questions down tends to make grief heavier. Saying them out loud, especially to Someone safe, makes room to breathe.

Naomi didn’t pretend. And God didn’t leave.

Keep reading: I shall go to him: accepting the death of someone you love

What Naomi couldn’t see yet

Now here’s the part I love. Right after Naomi calls herself bitter, the writer adds one small detail. It’s easy to miss.

Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem “at the beginning of barley harvest” (Ruth 1:22, ESV).

Harvest. In a story that started with famine.

Naomi said she came home empty. But she wasn’t actually empty. She came home with Ruth, the daughter in law who refused to leave her. And she came home right when the fields were about to be full.

She couldn’t see any of that yet. She only saw what she’d lost. That’s what grief does. It fills up your whole field of vision, and it’s hard to notice anything else.

But God was already at work. Quietly. In the background. Through ordinary things like a loyal friend and a barley field.

Maybe that’s where God is in your grief too. Not always in the dramatic answer you begged for. Sometimes in the friend who keeps showing up. The neighbor who mows your lawn without being asked. The verse that happens to come up on the one morning you needed it. Small things, easy to miss, that are His way of saying, I’m still here.

Keep reading: Jesus wept: 6 myths about grief that hurt

Where the story goes

I don’t want to rush you to the end of Naomi’s story, because she didn’t get there fast either. The book of Ruth covers months of hard, ordinary days. Gleaning in the fields. Wondering how they’d eat. Waiting.

But the story does go somewhere.

Ruth eventually marries a kind man named Boaz, and they have a son. And at the very end of the book, the same women of Bethlehem who heard Naomi say “call me Bitter” gather around her again. This time they say, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer” (Ruth 4:14, ESV).

Then comes one of the most tender lines in the whole Bible: “Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse” (Ruth 4:16, ESV).

The woman who came home empty is holding a baby in her lap.

It didn’t bring her husband back. It didn’t bring her sons back. Her grief was still real, and I’m sure she carried it the rest of her life. But her story wasn’t over. And that little boy, Obed, became the grandfather of King David, and the family line that eventually led to Jesus.

Naomi had no idea. All she knew in chapter one was that she was bitter. God knew where the story was going the whole time.

He doesn’t leave because you’re bitter

Here’s the grace in all of this.

God didn’t wait for Naomi to get her attitude right before He started working. He didn’t need her to stop calling herself Mara first. He was already providing for her while she was still saying the Almighty had dealt bitterly with her.

His faithfulness didn’t depend on her feelings. It still doesn’t.

You don’t have to feel close to God for Him to stay close to you. You don’t have to understand why your person died. You can bring Him every bitter question you have, and He won’t turn away. That’s not because you’re strong enough to hold on to Him. It’s because He holds on to you.

Jesus showed us that. He came into the grief of this world on purpose. He wept at His friend’s grave. He knows what loss feels like from the inside. And He walked out of His own grave so that death wouldn’t have the last word for those who trust Him.

If you’re not sure what you believe about any of this right now, that’s all right. You’re welcome here, questions and all. And if you’ve ever wondered what it would mean to know Jesus personally, as Someone who stays with you in the hard places, I’d love to share more with you here.

Something to sit with this week

Try being as honest with God as Naomi was. You don’t need fancy words. If you’d like, say something like this: Where is God in my grief? Closer than it feels.

Lord, I’ll be honest. Right now I feel more like Mara than Naomi. I don’t understand why this happened, and sometimes I’m not even sure where You are. But I’m telling You the truth because I want to believe You’re still here. Help me notice the barley fields. Amen.

Then, sometime this week, watch for one small sign that you’re not as alone as you feel. A kind word. A phone call. A friend who shows up. Write it down if you want, or just say thank you.

Naomi walked into Bethlehem calling herself bitter. She ended the story with a baby in her lap.

Your story isn’t finished either.

Blessings,

Pastor Howard