This past Sunday, we received a sizeable financial gift from the charitable foundation of a dear lady in Christ who had known our church well over the years, and had returned to be with the Lord in 2021.  Ruth left behind a legacy of our young immigrants who had been mentored in teaching, investments in the lives of countless international students here at home, and then serving the Lord by touching the lives of many in Germany and in Hungary where she served after her retirement. Ruth remained single throughout her 87 years, but the children of hope and joy and blessing that she left behind are many.  Unexpectedly, she turned even a year after her passing and continued to bless our congregation of believers at a time when we were calling on the Lord to provide for our needs as we coped with a season of rapid growth in a world rife with financial downturns.

It teaches me, as I hope it does all of us, to look to the Lord regardless of our circumstances.  One could gripe about being single; another could complain about the pains of being married.  Yet another could agonize over a season of unemployment; and another can cry under the burden of stress that employment brings. The final analysis is that we forget what Job resoundingly declares in the midst of his troubles, “He knows that way that I take.” The reminder of Ruth’s life to me is that God has called us to be passionate about blessing those around us whom God brings into our pathways, and then to do even more by going out to seek in every corner of our sphere of influence how we may bless.  It is not “giants of faith” that God seeks to work His purposes, but simple people who seek to hear His voice and obey His call.  In the end, we as a body of Christ received even beyond Ruth’s return to the presence of her Father more than we deserve.  Perhaps, with Ruth, we can ask, “How else can I be a blessing?”  and through that discover God opening the windows of heaven (Malachi 3:10) and pouring out…more than we deserve.