“Call me Mara”

“’Don’t call me Naomi,’ she told them.  ‘Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter” (Ruth 1:20)

The name “Naomi” means “pleasant.”  And the name “Mara” means “bitterness.”  We wonder why Naomi told her hometown people to call her Mara instead of Naomi.  It was because Naomi thought that God made her life very bitter.  What about her life?  She had a husband named Elimelech and two sons (Mahlon and Kilion).  But when they used to live in the country of Moab (v.1), she lost all of them.  Her husband and two sons died in the country of Moab.  And when she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of His people by providing food for them, she returned to her hometown Bethlehem with one of her daughter-in-law named Ruth.  She went away full, but “the Lord has brought me back empty” (v.21).  That was why Naomi told her hometown people to call her Mara instead of her real name Naomi.

Don’t we sometime feel like we are “Mara”(bitterness) instead of Naomi (pleasant)?  Don’t we feel like sometimes we lost everything and we are empty?  But Naomi had Ruth who would later marry to Boaz and have a baby name Obed who was a grandfather of King David (4:17).  You see, God had a plan for Naomi.  God always turns “Mara” to “Naomi.”