Part 1 Story: The Bible tells a double love story in the Book of Ruth. Ruth loved her mother-in-law Naomi so much that she decided to leave her own people in the land of Moab and take responsibility for taking care of Naomi in Naomi’s native Israel. Both women were widows, and Ruth could have remarried more easily in her native country, Moab. In Israel, people looked down on people from Moab.

The two women were on the verge of starving. So Ruth went to gather leftover barley from the field of one of Naomi’s rich relatives, Boaz. Boaz was immediately attracted to her.

A rich farmer notices the foreign widow

When Boaz saw Ruth gleaning in his field, he asked questions and found out what she was doing for Naomi. He invited her to lunch and then showered her with food to take back to Naomi. Then privately, he told his young men to snap off some heads of barley and drop them on purpose for Ruth to gather. “And don’t make any remarks to her,” he warned.

That evening, Ruth returned to Naomi with a whole bushel of barley. When she told her mother-in-law all about Boaz’s kindness to her, Naomi cried “Boaz! He is one of our closest relatives!”

Naomi explains Israelite customs to Ruth

As harvest time drew to a close, Naomi told her daughter-in-law that it was time for her to think of marriage -- to Boaz, who had continued to be so kind to them. Then she advised Ruth how to proceed according to Israelite customs of that day.

“Dress up and go to the threshing floor,” she said. This is where Boaz would be sleeping that night to protect his crops. “Then lie down at his feet.” Boaz would understand this action as Ruth’s desire for him to marry her, as her deceased husband’s next of kin, to raise children to carry on the family name.

Boaz is charmed but must follow Israelite customs

When Ruth did as Naomi advised, Boaz said, “You are being even kinder to Naomi now than before. Naturally you would prefer to marry a younger man than me, even if he was poor. But you have put aside your personal desires.”

By then Boaz was completely taken by Ruth’s inner beauty and determined to marry her. However, custom decreed that a closer relative of Naomi’s than Boaz had to be offered the first chance to marry her. So Boaz formally went before the city elders to ask this man if he was willing to marry Ruth. Fortunately, this relative already had a family, so he turned down that honor and responsibility.

Boaz marries Ruth

Boaz married Ruth, and the Lord gave them a son, Obed. When Obed was born, the women of the city came to Naomi and said, “Bless the Lord who has given you this grandson! May he be famous in Israel. May he restore your youth and take care of you in your old age. For he is the son of your daughter-in-law, who loves you so much and has been kinder to you than seven sons.”

In time, Obed became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of Israel’s famous King David. Truly Ruth was blessed many times over for her love and her faithful responsibility to Naomi.

Today’s prayer

Thank You, Lord, that as I choose to please you and show love and compassion, You bless me and provide me with every good thing. Amen.

© 1998 Maria Luisa Navarro

The Bible tells a double love story in the Book of Ruth.

During the three hundred years when Israel was ruled by judges, a famine drove a man named Elimelech and his family from their home in Bethlehem into the country of Moab. There his two sons married local girls, even though the Israelites looked down on the people of Moab as heathen.

A poor immigrant widow and her two widowed daughters-in-law

Then Elimelech and both his sons died, leaving Elimelech’s widow Naomi and her two daughters-in-law with no one to support them. This was a terrible situation for any woman, but Naomi was especially impoverished. She was too old to work for her food or marry again. So Naomi decided to go back to Bethlehem, where she had relatives and where the famine had ended.

Ruth throws in her lot with Naomi

Naomi urged her daughters-in-law to stay with their own people, where it would be easier for them to remarry. The first girl agreed, but the second one, Ruth, had compassion for her aged mother-in-law and decided to take responsibility for her. So she refused to leave Naomi. “I want to go wherever you go and live wherever you live,” she said. “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.”

So Naomi and Ruth made their way back to Bethlehem, where they were soon close to starving.

Ruth worked hard to support her mother-in-law

In the surrounding fields, a fine crop of barley was being harvested. Now, in those days in Israel, the law permitted poor people to follow reapers in the field and pick up stray stalks of grain. So Ruth decided to glean this free grain.

Soon she found herself in a field belonging to a rich man named Boaz, a distant relative of Naomi’s. While Ruth was gleaning, Boaz arrived. “Who is that woman?” he asked his foreman.

“That’s the foreigner from Moab who came with her mother-in-law Naomi,” he said. “She has been working all day and has only stopped a few minutes to rest.”

Boaz treats the foreign woman kindly

So Boaz went over to Ruth and invited her to continue working in his fields, where she would be safe and secure. She thanked him, and then asked why he was treating her so kindly even though she was a foreigner.

“You may be a foreigner,” Boaz said, “but I have heard about all the love and kindness you have shown to your mother-in-law Naomi since your husbands died. I know you left your father and mother in your own land to come here to live among strangers to help her. May the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, bless you for this.”

Intrigued by this woman, Boaz invited her to lunch the next day, hoping to get better acquainted.

(Story to be continued)

The meaning of the word compassion

In Latin, the “com” in “compassion” means “with,” and “passion” refers to suffering, as in the phrase “the passion of Jesus Christ.” So to have compassion means that you lovingly suffer with someone in their difficulties. You walk alongside them. Ruth showed compassion on her mother-in-law. She walked alongside her in her trouble and lovingly suffered with her.

Today’s prayer

Lord, please help me to be like Ruth, being willing to walk alongside people and share their troubles. Amen.

© 1998 Maria Luisa Navarro

(Part One Story: Commander Mitsuo Fuchido was the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, ushering in the U.S. entry into World War II. When the U.S. defeated Japan in 1945, Fuchido’s distinguished military career ended. Allied forces ordered him to testify in war crime trials against Japanese military officers for abusing prisoners of war. Bitterly Fuchido began trying to gather evidence to prove that Americans had treated their POWs no better than the Japanese. Instead he heard stories about Peggy Covell, an American who cared for Japanese POWs with great compassion even though Japanese soldiers had killed her parents.)

Why didn’t Miss Covell hate? Why didn’t she take revenge on our men? Fuchido wondered.

Occupation authorities summoned Fuchido to testify in yet another war crimes trial. Getting off the train in Tokyo, he noticed an American handing out pamphlets titled I Was a Prisoner of Japan. He took one and read the story of Jake DeShazer.

The story changed his life

Jake DeShazer was a soldier stationed in California when Fuchido was leading the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. When DeShazer heard the news, he was on kitchen duty. He picked up a potato, flung it at the wall and yelled, “Jap, just wait and see what we’ll do to you!”

To DeShazer’s delight, his opportunity for revenge came soon. He volunteered for the Jimmy Doolittle Squadron secret mission: the surprise bombing of Japan from the carrier the USS Hornet. The raid took place April 18, 1942. Since the planes could not carry enough fuel to get back to the USS Hornet, the airmen planned to fly to free China. Unfortunately, due to wind drag from a hole in their plastic windshield, their fuel ran out over Japanese-controlled China. They parachuted out and were captured.

DeShazer was in Japanese hands for 40 months

His captors were cruel. A firing squad executed three of his crew members, and a fourth died of starvation. He suffered beatings, malnourishment, and month after month in solitary confinement. He said later that he hated the Japanese so violently that he nearly went insane.

Two years after his capture, he found out there was a Bible in the POW camp. His captors allowed him to read it for three weeks only. That Bible became his meeting place with the living God. As he opened himself to Jesus Christ during the next two years, his hatred for the Japanese turned to compassion. He learned the language, began treating his captors with respect, and determined that if ever he was released from POW camp, he would go to Japan to introduce the Japanese to the God who changed his life.

Set free in spirit, set free in body

In August 1945, ten days after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Americans parachuted into DeShazer’s POW camp and set him free. He returned home, attended Bible college, and moved to Japan as a missionary.

Fuchido pondered Peggy Covell’s and Jake DeShazer’s stories. Their “peaceful motivation…was exactly what I was seeking,” he wrote. A year after reading DeShazer’s story, he bought a Bible.

“In the ensuing weeks, I read this book eagerly. I came to the climactic drama -- the Crucifixion. I read in Luke 23:34 the prayer of Jesus Christ at His death: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ I was impressed that I was certainly one of those for whom He had prayed. The many men I had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, for I did not understand the love which Christ wishes to implant within every heart.”

Fuchido and DeShazer, enemies no more

On April 14, 1950 Fuchido gave himself to Jesus Christ. In May he traveled to DeShazer’s home and introduced himself. The two men, once bitter enemies, welcomed each other as brothers in Christ. Mitsuo Fuchido lived another 26 years, spending the rest of his life traveling as an evangelist and writing books, including a booklet about his spiritual journey, From Pearl Harbor to Calvary.

In his booklet, Fuchido wrote these words: “I would give anything to retract my actions…at Pearl Harbor, but it is impossible. Instead, I now work at striking the death-blow to the basic hatred which infests the human heart and causes such tragedies. And that hatred cannot be uprooted without assistance from Jesus Christ. He is the only One Who was powerful enough to change my life and inspire it with His thoughts. He was the only answer to Jake DeShazer's tormented life. He is the only answer for young people today.”

What Jesus said

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers because they will be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9).

Today’s prayer

Dear Jesus, show me what is in my heart that needs uprooting. Please help me dig it up, get it out, and replant peacemaking love in its place. Amen.

Resource: Youtube has three videos about the story of Jacob DeShazer. Here are the links

From Vengeance to Forgiveness: The Story of Jake DeShazer

WWIl Soldier’s Life a Testimony to Forgiveness – CBN.com

Interview with Jacob DeShazer

© 2018 Becky Cerling Powers