You know that verse people always pull out around wedding-times?<\/p>\n
“Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”
\n~Ruth 1:16<\/p><\/blockquote>\nObviously a romantic and wedding appropriate Scripture, right?<\/p>\n
But the context of this verse isn’t a wedding at all.<\/p>\n
Actually, it’s a funeral.<\/p>\n
Ruth’s husband has died, as has her husband’s brother and father. Now only she, her sister-in-law, and her mother-in-law remain, destitute widows in Moab.<\/p>\n
Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, urges Ruth and Orpah to return to their fathers’ houses, to remarry and to be happy.<\/p>\n
Ruth protests, saying that she would rather be a foreigner in a foreign land, would rather work to support her helpless mother-in-law, would rather adopt a foreign God than leave her beloved mother-in-law.<\/p>\n
A far cry from modern mother-in-law stories.<\/p>\n
So many women are at odds with their mothers-in-law. Or if they aren’t at odds, they don’t protest at the profusion of mother-in-law jokes.<\/p>\n
This saddens me.<\/p>\n
That’s not what I want my relationship with my mother-in-law to look like. I don’t want to roll my eyes at her and forever be competing with her (whether actually or just in our minds) for my husband’s affection.<\/p>\n
While I certainly don’t want to be in Ruth’s situation, I would love to have the kind of relationship with my mother-in-law that I would respond as Ruth did.<\/p>\n
Of course, I have on good authority that my soon-to-be mother-in-law is a wonderful woman and a fantastic mother-in-law. <\/p>\n
When Daniel and I were visiting his brother and sister-in-law before my trip to Philadelphia, Katie shooed her husband from the room so she could give me the down-low on the family. (She must have seen the writing on the wall–we got engaged, much to our surprise, only days later.)<\/p>\n
Katie had only good things to say about her mother-in-law, a woman who I had not yet met.<\/p>\n
Now, having met Paula, I can say with certitude that I am inclined to like her and am very much looking forward to having her as a mother-in-law. <\/p>\n
Of course, this week I have extra incentive to repeat Ruth’s words: <\/p>\n
Where you go I will go
\nsince she’s going to Wichita<\/i><\/p>\nand where you lodge I will lodge
\nactually, I’ll be staying elsewhere, but we’ll both be spending a good amount of time at the home of her son, my betrothed<\/i> <\/p>\nYour people shall be my people,
\nThat is, her son shall be my husband (!)<\/i><\/p>\nand your God my God.
\nI am so thrilled that my future mother-in-law is a woman of God who will pray for Daniel and I and encourage us in the Lord.<\/i><\/p>\nThis weekend, I have the delightful opportunity to travel with my future father- and mother-in-law to Wichita (9 hours roundtrip) to see Daniel. <\/p>\n
While I won’t lie and say that I have no apprehensions, I am overwhelmingly excited for this chance to get to know my in-laws better (and maybe to learn a little more about the man I love.)<\/p>\n
Where you go, indeed.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know that verse people always pull out around wedding-times? “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” ~Ruth 1:16 Obviously a romantic and wedding appropriate Scripture, right? But the context of this verse isn’t a wedding at all. … Read more Where you go…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10422"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}