When I was a senior in high school, I signed up to participate in mock trial.

Yes. You read that correctly. Mock trial.

To this day I couldn’t tell you why I decided to join the pretend-courtroom fun. Because did I want to be a lawyer one day? No. Did I enjoy conflict? Not at all. Did I dream of constructing the perfect cross-examination? Not so much. Did I harbor a secret love and zeal for the law? No, I did not. I mean, sure, I liked to watch L.A. Law as much as the next person, but that was really more about seeing Harry Hamlin and Corbin Bernsen and their very fancy late-’80s/early-’90s suits.

Nonetheless, I loved Mrs. Glover, the mock trial sponsor, and I liked to write better than almost anything, so I signed up and told myself that it would be a great learning experience. A week or so later, I met Mrs. G and my mock trial colleagues for our first informational meeting at the county courthouse. A local attorney showed us around and briefed us in regard to our schedule and research.

(Please note my masterful use of legal-ish term “briefed.”)

(Clearly I was a mock trial natural.)

About the time the attorney said the word “research,” I realized how much preparation and hard work mock trial would require. And approximately eleven seconds after that realization, I started looking for the nearest exit and thinking, PEACE OUT, mock trial peeps. It’s been real real here in the courtroom, but if it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna object to this time-consuming extracurricular activity and head on back to the house.

The second there was a pause in the proceedings (see what I did there?), I made a break for it. I mumbled an excuse to my friends, ran down the courthouse steps, cranked my car, slammed the gearshift into reverse, and punched the accelerator as forcefully as my bronze Nina flats and my nagging conscience would allow.

I was seventeen years old and fleeing from that mock trial informational session like it was on fire. It was weird for me, that overwhelming certainty that NO, I REFUSE TO DO EVEN A LITTLE BIT OF THIS, because for most of my life I’d stuck with everything I’d started. I’d taken piano lessons and dance lessons since I was in first grade. I was a faithful member of my church, my youth group, and even my high school social club (which, in retrospect, might have been a pretty good thing to quit, but we can unpack that another time). If you wanted someone to stick to a plan and keep her commitments, I was your girl.

But then mock trial came on the scene.

And the morning after my Buick and I rode off into the humid Mississippi evening, I went to see Mrs. Glover and made my withdrawal official: I told her that I wasn’t going to be able to participate in mock trial after all.

I quit. My underdeveloped sense of commitment and loyalty won the day.

And it was like a switch flipped.

Bailing on mock trial turned out to be one of the most significant events of my high school years, because it is precisely when I discovered how much I liked quitting.

In fact, I decided that I was pretty good at quitting.

There was a lot of quit in me after all!

And while there were probably all sorts of things I could have embraced at that point in my life—academic excellence, fitness, Bible study, devoting fewer waking hours to watching old episodes of Designing Women on videotape—I threw my arms around quitting like it was a long-lost friend I’d been missing most of my life. If anything bumped up against my personal comfort zone, I screamed “I QUIT” as I pulled the metaphorical pin and cast that thing out of my routine and my life like a live grenade.

It wasn’t a short-lived pattern, either; I was a certified, licensed, and accomplished quitter for the next six or seven years. And while I won’t bore you with a detailed list of my quitting accomplishments (which, for the record, might be more widely referred to as, you know, failures), I definitely made up for lost quitting time.

(Okay. Here’s one example. A couple of years after college I agreed to work with the youth at church, and then, after approximately one Sunday afternoon of sacrificial service,* I never showed up at youth group again.)

(*That was sarcasm. Clearly.)

Over and over I gave myself permission to be flaky and unreliable and selfish (it’s not lost on me that you can’t spell “quit” without a big, fat “I”). So by the time I was in my early twenties, all that quitting and shortcutting and practicing the fine art of being reliably unreliable—well, it had taken a toll on my mind and my heart. It had affected other people. It had damaged relationships. And it had most definitely interfered in my walk with the Lord.

I wasn’t loyal to anyone or anything other than my own dadgum self.

That’s why there are still days when I look back over my forty-something shoulder and wish I’d done my late teens and early twenties differently. For sure I get that we’re all “prone to wander” people, but wouldn’t it be nice if our wandering didn’t affect other folks? If we could make our biggest mistakes in isolated, sanitized, vacuum-sealed environments? Wouldn’t that be so lovely?

But here’s the good news (besides the fact that I dodged having to be a pretend-lawyer, sorry not sorry): in every single bit of that rebellion and shortsightedness, the gentle hand of God stayed right with me, pushing and steering and guiding me toward a better way.

A better Way.

Around 1100 BC, a man named Elimelech quit Israel.

I mean, as far as we know he didn’t look at a map of Israel, point, and declare, “I QUIT YOU,” but here’s what we do know: when his home country was in the middle of a famine, he decided to take a breather from life in the land of Judah, and he moved his family—wife Naomi, sons Mahlon and Chilion—to Moab, a neighboring country on the other side of the Dead Sea.

That means that when things got tough in the Promised Land, Elimelech got the heck out of Dodge—or Bethlehem, as it were. According to David Guzik, Elimelech’s departure was “a return towards the wilderness from which God had delivered Israel hundreds of years before. These were clearly steps in the wrong direction.”18

Unfortunately, the wilderness wasn’t kind to Elimelech, and he died shortly after settling in Moab. His sons eventually took Moabite wives even though Israeli law forbade them to do so—Mahlon married Ruth, and Chilion married Orpah—and about ten years after their arrival in their new country, both sons died as well.

Given all of that, it seems like Elimelech’s decision to move to Moab may not have been his best idea. Yes, life in Israel had been difficult, but the family was intact. After a decade in Moab, though, the family of five was a family of three, and Elimelech’s wife, Naomi, was the only original member remaining. But in the middle of her sadness, Naomi—no doubt overwhelmed and unsure of how to move forward—heard that the Lord was once again blessing the people of Israel with abundant crops. It was just the encouragement she needed to set off on a return trip to Judah, her home.

However, the Naomi who was returning to Bethlehem was vastly different than the Naomi who had left over ten years before. Her husband had taken her “from a place where God was honored to a land so heathen in its ways.”19 And after Elimelech’s death, any notions that Naomi may have had about being her sons’ sole priority were put to rest when Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite women who “were not of her people, nor of her faith in God.”20 Then, after her sons passed away and Naomi found herself longing for the Promised Land, she had no one to accompany her on her journey except for Ruth and Orpah, two daughters-in-law who seemingly had no place in Bethlehem.

She had no idea if anyone would be loyal to her in her time of need.

My mama would say that Naomi was in a real pickle. She had suffered one setback after another, and the circumstances surrounding her return trip to Bethlehem could have been the first Middle Eastern reality show if there had been anything remotely resembling TVs or broadcasting or, I don’t know, electricity back then.

Two daughters-in-law.

One mother-in-law.

A thirty-mile hike around the Dead Sea.

WHO WILL SURVIVE?

I was in the middle part of my twenties when I realized that it was time to stop being such a flaky fool (side note: all I can think about right now is that “The Flaky Fool” sounds like a bakery for wayward pastries and maybe even rebellious biscuits). And a couple of years after I hit the Real-Live Grown-Up reset button, David and I started dating pretty seriously. Within six months we were engaged, and six months later we were married, and hey, apparently the Lord had helped me make some strides in the way of keeping commitments because MARRIAGE.

Marriage brought all sorts of changes into my life, but I can honestly say that one of the most entertaining parts of being a newlywed was my new mother-in-law, Martha, a silver-haired, five-foot, hundred-pound dynamo who likes to say things in threes and is cute as a button (which is perfect since she also loves buttons).

She does!

She really does!

There are just so many cute buttons!

I consider myself so fortunate to have known Martha Clair Hudson for most of my life. Our families have gone to church together since I was in second grade, so there’s no question that I initially took her great affection for my sister-in-law, Rose, and me totally for granted. By the time David and I got married, in fact, Martha had already loved and looked out for me for twenty years, so there was no awkward getting-to-know-you phase in our relationship. I was up to speed on most of the Hudson history before I was officially part of the family, and since David and I had been close friends since we were in junior high, I was as comfortable at Martha’s house as I was at my parents’.

As a newlywed, that was such a gift.

My husband and I have now been married for nineteen years, and here’s what blows my mind: over the entire course of those nineteen years, Martha has never said an unkind word to me. Not one single time. That doesn’t mean that everything has been perfect—family life never is—but even when she has been frustrated or confused or hurt by something I’ve said or done, she has only responded in the most gracious, loving, and merciful ways. She’s quick to tell Rose and me how much she loves us, how proud she is of us, and how she just never dreamed she’d have daughters-in-law she loves as much as us.

In other words, Martha is way more than I deserve.

It’s true!

It’s really true!

I promise that it’s true!

Before they got too far into their trip to Bethlehem, Naomi gave Ruth and Orpah an out. In fact, she told them to “go, return each of you to your mother’s house” (Ruth 1:8), and when they refused, she twice pleaded with them to “turn back, my daughters” (vv. 11–12).

(Apparently Martha isn’t the only mother-in-law who tends to say things in threes.)

Considering that the women’s reaction to Naomi’s requests was to cry and “lift up their voices” (vv. 9, 14), it’s obvious that they all cared deeply for one another. And the issue at hand wasn’t that Naomi didn’t want her daughters-in-law to make the journey with her; instead she was essentially saying that they had all been through enough already. After suffering because of Elimelech’s choices, she didn’t want the young women to face any additional hardships as a result of relocating to Naomi’s homeland.

From that perspective, Naomi’s deep vulnerability—her admonition to “turn back”—almost seems like she was trying to make right what Elimelech got wrong. Maybe on some level she wanted Ruth and Orpah to do what her family didn’t, to do what her family should have done. She wanted her daughters-in-law to stay home while they still could. Because as Naomi knew all too well, once they crossed the border into a foreign land, it could be a very long time before they got to go home again.

In Ruth 1:8–13, there’s an incredibly emotional exchange between the three women. Naomi gave them every opportunity to walk away, and in Ruth 1:14, we see what Naomi’s daughters-in-law finally decided to do.

“And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.”

In what must have been an absolutely agonizing decision, Orpah’s kiss signaled her departure from the trio and her intention to stay in Moab. Maybe that’s why those last five words of verse 14 carry so much weight and pack such relational punch; Orpah was leaving, “but Ruth clung to her” (emphasis mine).

Naomi made one last attempt to get Ruth to change her mind, but Ruth was resolute:

Don’t force me to leave you; don’t make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I’ll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I’ll die, and that’s where I’ll be buried, so help me God—not even death itself is going to come between us! (vv. 16–17 msg)

It’s one of those passages that takes my breath away a little bit, because it’s a level of commitment we don’t see modeled often in our current culture. Ruth wasn’t trying to appease Naomi with her words, and she wasn’t giving lip service to make herself look good; she was pledging the rest of her life to her mother-in-law and letting her know that Ruth + Naomi = LONG HAUL. The age gap didn’t matter, the family devastation didn’t matter, the difference in backgrounds didn’t matter. There was nothing “fair weather” about this relationship, nothing conditional about her loyalty.

Verses 16–17 really are such a beautiful reminder of what sacrificial, committed care for our people looks like. As Matthew Henry wrote, “Nothing could be said more fine, more brave, than [Ruth’s words]. She seems to have had another spirit, and another speech, now that her sister had gone, and it is an instance of the grace of God inclining the soul to the resolute choice of the better part.”21

Then there’s this:

When we stick together in tough times—when we choose to walk the rough road together instead of letting circumstances splinter us apart—we can’t even imagine how the Lord might redeem the parts of our respective stories that are difficult and maybe even painful.

But that’s precisely what Ruth and Naomi were about to find out.

About seven years ago Martha and I took a little road trip of our own to a ministry event in Memphis. While I was going to do some blogging work, I knew the weekend would also be loads of fun, and I had originally planned to drive over by myself. A couple of weeks before the conference, though, I felt super convicted that I was supposed to ask Martha to go with me. Never one to turn down an out-of-town adventure (unless it interferes with her standing appointment at the beauty parlor), Martha was immediately on board, and late one Thursday afternoon, we set out on the four-hour trek from Birmingham to Memphis.

On the surface, everything was peachy and rosy and whatever other color has a happy connotation, but there was a whole lot bubbling under the surface that Martha didn’t know about. David was feeling all sorts of pressure related to his work; we were both trying to navigate our respective stages of marriage and parenting; and between juggling a return to full-time teaching as well as some freelance writing, I spent most days feeling overwhelmed and maybe a smidge resentful that I had so much on my plate. There was a near-constant pit in the center of my stomach and the most annoying nag in the back of my brain. It was almost like a mixture of fear and dread formed a tiny mental cloud that stayed with me all the time, and nothing I did seemed to make it budge.

I couldn’t make that sucker rain, either. Not for love nor (lack of) money.

So there I was, driving my mother-in-law up Highway 78, feeling sick at my stomach whenever I thought about the Assorted Problems and Also Pressures of 2009. Martha, on the other hand, was in fine form, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that there were three specific topics she wanted to discuss: (1) the floor plan of her new patio home, (2) her search for a new sofa, and (3) the elusive nature of a three-piece patio set.

So I think it’s safe to say that Martha and I weren’t exactly in the same frame of mind.

For the first couple of hours, I played the sweet daughter-in-law game really well. And don’t misunderstand: I wanted to be the sweet daughter-in-law. Martha is a gem, and I really did (and do) want to honor her and love her well. So I paid attention as she walked me through the details of the floor plan, I looked at the envelope where she’d drawn out potential furniture placement in her living room, and I nodded as she talked about the perils of oversized furniture (“Sofa cushions are so big now! They’re just so big! I mean, Sophie, CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE how big sofa cushions are?!”). We lamented the difficulty of finding a small-ish wrought iron patio set to fit on her back porch, and then we segued into a lengthy conversation about antique tea carts and how perfect it would be if Martha had one in front of her kitchen window.

Martha wanted to put a lamp on it!

Just a cute little lamp!

It would be so fun if the tea cart had a lamp!

As we got closer to Memphis, though, I could feel that nag of fear and dread threatening to take over, which meant that Martha’s lighthearted conversation and furniture plans and patio set dreams started to feel like a really cute shoe that I’d been wearing for about an hour too long. It was pinch-y and rubbing me the wrong way; plus, I wanted to talk about real problems and maybe not quite so many things involving the Sunday circulars from furniture stores.

See? I am a terrible, petty person.

(Also, if you read the previous chapter, let me ask you this: what is it about Memphis being my go-to location for emotional come-aparts while attending Christian conferences?)

(Perhaps we need to explore this pattern at another time.)

(Or maybe I just need to quit going to conferences in Memphis.)

(Anyhoo.)

I do want to be crystal clear about something: the problem that weekend wasn’t Martha at all. The problem was my preoccupation with my own internal turmoil combined with a misguided assumption that my mother-in-law couldn’t relate to how I was feeling. To my way of thinking, at least, I was dealing with some Serious Life Pressures, and, as far as I could tell, the biggest issue in Martha’s life was where to find an elusive antique tea cart and some smaller-scale sofas.

Martyr much? Because I think I majored in it that weekend in Memphis.

For the next forty-eight hours, I continued to fight the same mental and emotional battle. Oh, I smiled and I played nice and I sang real loud during worship and I underlined passages in my Bible and I took copious notes during the teaching. But my heart was unsettled—irritated, even—and I didn’t know what to do with it.

Fortunately, though—mercifully—Martha totally stepped up and bridged the gap. I don’t know if she picked up on what was going on with me, but not too far into our Sunday morning drive back to Birmingham, she made a simple, straightforward statement that pierced right through that bubble-o-frustration I’d allowed to settle around my heart:

“Sophie, I’ve never experienced worship like that in my life, but I needed it, and I sure do thank the Lord for it.”

And then: “I just never dreamed I’d enjoy life so much at this age. It’s not perfect, and sometimes things are sad, but I’m so blessed. It’s more than I ever hoped.”

There was a tender vulnerability in Martha’s words, and as I looked over at her in the passenger seat, a wave of compassion swept over me. For the first time all weekend, I thought about the reality of her daily life—how she cared for her ailing mother, how she missed her late husband, how she ministered to friends with failing health. I thought about hardships she’d endured, tough situations she’d grieved, and how, in her late seventies, she loved the Lord more than ever.

She had been delightful company on our trip, no doubt about it, but what I didn’t stop to realize was she needed a break from the pressures of home just as much as I did. Her unexpected moment of reflection snapped me out of my selfishness and made me remember that she was dealing with so much more than floor plans and patio sets and tea carts. In fact, she was actually managing “a lots,” as she’s fond of saying, and she was every bit as desperate for Jesus to intercede in her circumstances as I was.

Martha understood way more than I gave her credit for.

About that time she piped up from the passenger seat.

“Sophie, can I ask you something?”

“Sure thing,” I said.

“You know your friend Travis? The one who was the choir director or the music minister or whatever you call it at the conference? The one who sings so beautifully?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I grinned.

“Do you think you could get me some of his cassette tapes?”

“Well,” I laughed, “I could if it were 1992, but since it’s 2009, I may have to get you some CDs. Would that be okay?”

“That would be wonderful! Just wonderful! Perfectly wonderful!”

That Martha Hudson—I’ll tell you what. She’s not big as a minute, she’s a devoted fan of the 3/4-sleeve jacket, and she’s one of the strongest people I know.

So all of this stuff—the Naomi stuff, the Ruth stuff, the Martha stuff, the hey-sometimes-I-overreact stuff—it has me thinking.

And it reminds me that whether we’re older or younger or somewhere in between, we can so easily fall into the trap of looking at other women and thinking, Well, you are just in a completely different stage of life than I am, and you know what? That annoys me. I may even resent you for it.

In fact, now that I can look back on that weekend with Martha, it seems clear that my arms-crossed, head-turned, can’t-pinpoint-the-disconnect attitude is exactly where the enemy would like to hold us in our relationships with women (maybe even especially older women) who hold a special place in our lives. After all, if we tell ourselves that a person will never understand where we’re coming from and what we’re dealing with, then odds are we won’t open up.

And if we don’t open up, we can rest assured that we’ll miss out on other women’s wisdom and perspective. We might even walk around with a bunch of burdens we shouldn’t be trying to carry alone. We might compare ourselves straight into isolation and loneliness.

Or, heaven forbid, we might just quit—quit trying to reach out, quit trying to connect, quit trying to be vulnerable, quit trying to support, and quit trying to love each other really well.

If we’re not careful, we’ll pour bitterness and condemnation on wounds we should slather with forgiveness and grace.

I can’t help but think that we need Ruth and Naomi to school us in some areas where we need to learn a few lessons.

Because when Naomi was as vulnerable as she could possibly be with her daughters-in-law, Ruth didn’t think all that baggage was too much to carry. She wasn’t deterred by the reality of life with a mother-in-law who had a history of heartache and no concrete plan for the future.

By the same token, Naomi wasn’t deterred by the reality of life with a Moabite who had married her Jewish son, a woman who would no doubt face scorn and maybe even shame in Judah simply because of her background.

Facing less than ideal circumstances, Naomi and Ruth were two very imperfect women—one older, one younger, both widowed, both displaced—but they linked arms and joined hearts and committed to walk that thing out together.

There wasn’t a bit of quit in them.

When Ruth and Naomi finally reached the Promised Land, their problems didn’t magically disappear. Like it or not, their loyalty and commitment to each other didn’t result in surprise sightings of unicorns and rainbows in the immediate vicinity of the Dead Sea.

And when Martha and I finally reached the Birmingham city limits after our weekend in Memphis, we were still dealing with the same individual challenges and concerns we’d taken with us to Tennessee. Unfortunately, Martha couldn’t fix what was bothering me, and I couldn’t fix what was bothering her. I certainly couldn’t make the perfect antique tea cart appear, though if I could have, BELIEVE YOU ME it would have been at the top of my to-do list.

But regardless of the source of our respective problems and fears and worries, and regardless of how those things eventually played out, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that while yes, Martha was my mother-in-law, she was also my faithful friend.

And while I might eventually give up on determining the perfect furniture arrangement for her living room, I’d never give up on her.

I mean, how could I?

She’s so fun!

She’s just too fun!

Of all the mothers-in-law in the whole wide world, she really is the very most fun!