Author Archives: Natalie

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—thatContinue reading “Strength So That”

In January of 2019, I started down Highway 1 for a weekend of spiritual retreat and prayer. My destination was a cottage at a monastery just south of Big Sur, so I left San Francisco in the evening for a three-hour drive. That was the plan, anyway, until it started pouring rain. By the timeContinue reading “No Detour”

In my reflections on Ruth (this being the last one), I’ve described the characters as ordinary, imperfect folks who received extraordinary love from God. But Ruth is, ultimately, not remembered as an ordinary person, and her story is more than a tragedy that God turns into a quaint, happy ending. Boaz marries Ruth and theyContinue reading “Reflections on Ruth: The Butterfly Effect”

In my previous post, I introduced an unremarkable Israelite family that moved to Moab to ride out a famine. I described them as “ordinary people trying to live decent lives,” and I think they were. But the ordinary human condition is brokenness, not holiness, and this family was no exception.  When Naomi and her husbandContinue reading “Reflections on Ruth: Foreshadowing”

The Book of Ruth is about a family that is unremarkable and, therefore, relatable. There’s a husband, a wife, and their two sons. They live in Israel, in a town about thirty miles from where God’s ark sat in a tent. But it’s hard to say how often they visited the tabernacle. We know howContinue reading “Reflections on Ruth: The Famine”