But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
(Ruth 1:3–5 ESV)
There’s a Hebrew word that appears twice in these three short verses. It’s the word muth (מוּת), pronounced “mooth,” and it means to die, to perish, to be gone. It’s a blunt word. There’s no euphemism to cushion the blow. Just: “He died. They died. Gone.”
Naomi felt every bit of the pain of that word. She had already left her homeland with her husband and two sons in search of something better. Then muth came and took Elimelech. Just like that, she was a widow in a country that wasn’t hers. But life pressed on the way it always does, and her sons married and tried to rebuild some semblance of normal life. Then muth came again. Twice more. Three graves. Three times Naomi watched someone she loved be lowered into the ground.
If you’ve ever lost someone — a spouse, a child, a parent, a close friend — you know the pain of muth. It’s not just the absence of the person. It’s everything that keeps happening after they’re gone. The sun still rises. Neighbors still wave from their driveways. People still laugh at restaurants And you’re left standing in the middle of it all wondering how the world hasn’t noticed that something irreplaceable is gone.
The text says of Naomi that “she was left.” That phrase says a lot. She remained when others didn’t. She outlived what she loved most. Anyone who has experienced deep loss knows that “being left” can sometimes feel like its own kind of grief.
What’s striking is that Scripture doesn’t rush past this. It doesn’t say “Elimelech died, but it was okay because God had a plan.” It simply says he died. There’s no silver lining tacked on. The grief is allowed to just sit there on the page, and that’s significant. God is not in the business of pretending that loss isn’t loss.
But we dare not miss this: Naomi was still in the story. Muth had visited three times, and Naomi was still standing. Barely, perhaps, and certainly broken, but still breathing. Ruth 1:3–5 isn’t the end of the book. It’s page one. The God who allowed muth to enter Naomi’s story wasn’t finished with her yet. Being left behind is not the same as being left alone.
Grief is real and loss is real. God doesn’t minimize either one and he doesn’t expect you to. But he is also the God who draws near to the brokenhearted.
So if you find yourself today in the middle of that empty place that muth creates, know that you are not forgotten by God. You are not abandoned. You are like Naomi — broken, still moving, and more loved by God than you can probably feel right now. But the story isn’t over.
Prayer: Lord, I bring to you the losses I carry, the ones still fresh and the ones I thought I’d made peace with but that still ache when I think about them. You know every grave I’ve stood beside. I’m not asking you to explain it to me. I just need you to be near. Help me to keep walking, even when the road feels heavy. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Alan Smith
Reprinted with permission from Alan Smith’s Thought For the Day