This weekend we introduced the children to Ruth. We also taught the children what it means to be a family of faith and show love to others.

“Don’t ask me to leave you! Let me go with you. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and that is where I will be buried. May the LORD’s worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death separate me from you!” (Ruth 1:16-17, GNT). Ruth’s words to Naomi are potent. They are immortalized as the epitome of commitment because they demonstrate loyalty and loving concern in relationships. Ruth does not only request, “Let me go with you,” but she goes a step further to describe the extent of her commitment in going with Naomi. The Good News Translation uses one word that encompasses Ruth’s sincerity, and that word is wherever. Wherever means in any place and in any situation. So in going with Naomi, Ruth is saying this: “Naomi, I am with you in the good times and the bad. I am with you among your relatives. I am with you wherever you worship. I am with you even to death.” Ruth is assuring Naomi that she is not merely taking a temporary journey beside Naomi, then departing at a later date. (It would have been normal, and in fact expected, for Ruth to return to her own family since she was a widow.) Ruth’s “with you” means support for a lifetime. In going with Naomi, Ruth demonstrates what it means to be a part of a family, even a chosen family, and how family members should be committed to one another.

And so this weekend we taught the children the biblical story of Ruth. We taught them what it means to be a family of faith and to show love to others. As you interact with your children this week, talk about ways they can help and care for family members, friends, and others, but don’t stop there, express your care and concern for them, when you do, you are demonstrating that you are with them; you support them. They can count on you for support and compassion. And teach them to give thanks to God who supports you and them and is always with you.

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God”. 1 John 4:7