Today we hear one of the greatest stories of friendships between two women in the whole Bible.
It begins as a famine breaks our in Bethlehem and Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two sons (Mahlon and Chilion) emigrate to Moab, where Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi as a widow with the two boys.
When the two kids grow up, they marry Orpah (not Oprah, but Orpah) and Ruth.
Ten years later Naomi’s two sons die and she is left with no husband or son to take care of her in her old age. So she decides to go back home to Bethlehem and says goodbye to her daughters in law.
Now Orpah behaves normally. She kisses Naomi goodbye and that’s that.
But Ruth begins to follow Naomi as she begins to walk out of town on her way back home. Naomi protests, but then Ruth provides one of the most beautiful speaches in the whole Bible, when she says: "Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you live I will live, your people shall be my people, and your God my God."
The young widow Ruth is so devoted to her old mother-in-law not because she is rich or powerful. No. She is so utterly and completely devoted to her, just because she loves her.
Just like God loves us.
