Ruth: compassionate friend, companion, vision of beauty. She was a Biblical woman of noble character and God blessed her and generations afterwards for her beautiful representation of character. She represents humanity and shows us that following your heart with integrity can increase your influence with others. Instead of looking down on her as a foreigner, they noticed her and admired her. Her qualities include unfailing devotion, respect, grace, honesty, integrity, generosity, wholesomeness, virtue, honor, obedience, and kindness.
This is not me describing myself; this my prayer of who I want to look more like as I enter the mission field.
Growing up in a small Southern town and in (a few) Southern Baptist churches, I clung to a false gospel for a long time, one not full of grace. I was in church every Sunday and Wednesday for the sole reason of fellowship. I went through the motions. I was being told about Christ and His word but was not listening or learning. I remember saying a prayer in the bathroom with my sister at 7 and being baptized when I was 12. This happened mostly because others around me were doing these things and I liked the attention I got from them when I performed the same acts.
The rest is a blur, honestly, the classic story of growing up in the South. I was a good kid, played sports, didn’t date boys, and made okay grades. I grew up in the church youth group, went on every retreat, and was even asked to serve on the leadership team. I thought I was set. In the back of my mind there was always this small voice of doubt that whispered to me several times, “Am I really a Christian?” I ignored it... of course I was! In the South if you are born into a family that does Christian things, you are automatically believed to be one. It’s a branding most do not want, but it’s just assumed. Yet at some point your faith must become your own.
The story continues. Ignoring that voice is why I say I lived in sin for the next 13 years of my life. I was prideful, not humble. When I entered my sophomore year of college, the life I had worked so hard at building up around me came crashing down. My parents officially divorced out of a toxic relationship. My grandmother suddenly passed away with Glioblastoma, a rapidly growing brain cancer. My boyfriend and I broke up after dating for four years. I failed Anatomy, the class that was my gateway into a longtime dream of receiving a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. For the first time in my life things were not easy and were not handed to me. I was stuck in a broken season and had no hope for how to relieve myself from the pressures of the world.
I was looking for a way out, quick. What had I relied on in the past? “Jesus things.” I started applying to Christian camp counselor positions all over the States. That was the most Holy thing I could do that would get me away from Birmingham for the summer, right? Luckily, God knew exactly what I needed and I ended up working 40 hours a week at the Panama City Beach Walmart in Florida. What? I was attending a new church and college ministry at this crazy time in my life and they advocated for a local campus ministry’s spiritual and leadership development. I had not grown up going to Christian summer camps but had always wanted to. It sounded like Christian camp to me, so I signed up! Little did I know.
Within a week of being there I realized this was a very intense version of Christian camp and we had to work full time jobs? God knew, though. This was the best experience of my life. Within a week of being there I had been presented a true gospel many times, saw believers my age walking with the Lord and living out their faith in everyday life, and experienced a community of people with the same vision around me, pushing each other on to love and good works. This was the church, and it was so beautiful and different from anything I had ever been a part of before. I learned that the prayer of asking Jesus into your heart is not in the Bible and when you put your trust in something that you said, you are ultimately putting your trust back in yourself and not in Christ alone. If you had asked me up until this point in my life how I was a Christian, I would have responded with the prayer of salvation and baptism, because this was truly the extent of my faith. However, I never had a personal relationship with Jesus.
Matthew 7:21-23 says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ ”
This was the first time in reading His word that Christ revealed Scripture to me, I was convicted of the last 13 years, when I thought I was a Christian but in reality would have died to suffer in Hell. I was angry and scared. This was the day Christ chose to radically save my soul, and it has been a constant upward trajectory of sanctification since.
So where am I now? Two years later and I am officially an appointed missionary moving to Central Asia for two years to use my degree in Health Care Mangement and work alongside a busy medical clinic in administration. How? The Lord redeems everything. I changed my major sophomore year to Health Care Management because someone told me it was easy, and my mom told me I could not drop out of college! I found myself really enjoying learning about insurance, office and project management, and organizational studies.
I knew I did not feel called to continue school after my undergrad. I felt called to something different. I liked my major and wanted to use it but in a harder setting. I started looking at what I was enjoying in my life in the last two years of being a Christian and the answer was: Ministry. I was spending a significant amount of time discipling college students, serving my church, and getting involved in international ministry. This is where it all started to make sense. The Lord led me to GoCorps, a mobilizing organization that helps send recent college graduates based on their major for two years to already established teams on the ground. They help bridge the gap to mission organizations all over the world that need laborers in work and ministry. God kindly kept opening doors.
Why am I going? This opportunity to learn and grow the first two years out of college will change the direction of the rest of my life. I feel called to deep reliance and open hands. I’ve spent a lot of time learning about the 10/40 window, an area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia approximately between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude that has high concentrations of unreached peoples. I have gone to many trainings and conferences on how to reach these people. At first, it seemed like a distant dream to actually get to go and now the 10/40 window will be my home in a few short months. A prayer of mine has been for God to break my heart for what breaks His. To me this has been practically shown in where I am going, because 99.6% of this country is going to Hell, that hurts God. Do I believe I have the power to go there and save souls? No. However, I do believe Christ is sending me there to work through me in the lives of His people.
So who is Ruth? Ruth is my prayer, Ruth is me. Ruth will be my name on this journey of writing to you. I will share my real name with the people I encounter overseas. But so I can safely share real experiences and stories with you while I am on the field, my name will be Ruth.
In Christ,
Ruth :)