By Steve Horn What if your Mother’s Day is not a Hallmark movie? Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, had every right to ask that question. Ruth could too for that matter. After a couple of names and places in the opening verses 1-3, verses 4 and 5 have a staccato-like feel filled with a series of events that could simply be labeled, “Bad News.” The Bible tells us that at some point in this time of the judges, there was a famine in the land of Promise.  (Ruth 1:1). Living in Bethlehem (a town that means by the way, the house of bread), there was a man by the name of Elimelech (God is my King) and his wife, Naomi (Pleasant or Sweet One). They had two sons — Mahlon and Chilion. By the way, Mahlon means “sickly” and Chilion means “frail.” Can’t you see it? It’s a rather sad tale. “Hello, my name is ‘God is my King’ and this is my wife, ‘Sweet One.’ We are from the ‘House of Bread,’ but we left there, because there was a famine in the land, and we were about to starve to death. Meet our two kids, ‘Sickly’ and ‘Frail.’” The old line, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all” comes to mind. We might laugh, but believe me, they weren’t laughing. It could be that their move to the land of Moab was … [Read more...]