Truly You - By Natalie Bergquist

Since day one, we’ve been hiding. Whether it’s behind perfect grades or a thick layer of makeup, everyone is posing; terrified that if people saw who they truly are, they wouldn’t like what they see. Just walk down a high school hallway and count how many girls are basically wearing the same outfit. They’re all afraid to be themselves so they try to act like everyone else. However, hiding didn’t start in the twenty-first century with a bunch of teenage girls all wearing the same crop-top and skinny jeans. In fact, people can be seen hiding at every stage of life all throughout history. It started in the very beginning in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve first sinned against God. In Genesis it says “they hid from the lord…” (Genesis 3: 8). And humanity has been hiding ever since. Why? Because we are afraid of rejection. We’re ashamed of our imperfection. We know that we’re sinners. We know we don’t measure up. We long to be accepted. It’s one of the deepest, oldest desires of our hearts. When God created Adam, he said, “it is not good for man (or women) to be alone,” (Genesis 2: 18). However, we are so afraid of rejection that we hide and we never have the chance to be accepted. Like a hamster, we’re stuck in a small cage running round and round on a wheel. No matter how fast we run, we don’t go anywhere. On our own, we are trapped. The cage is locked and the wheel stays pinned to the wall. We’ve been hiding so long that we ourselves don’t even know who we truly are. Only one knows what’s behind the mask of insecurity. Only he can set us free. God is calling to us, “...listen to the Lord who created you, O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Don’t be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine,” (Isaiah 43: 1). God is calling us out of hiding. He sees us for who we truly are. He sees past the mask, the sin, the brokenness, and sees something beautiful. He is calling us to offer ourselves completely to him and to the world. We don’t have to be afraid of rejection because no matter how others treat us, we will always belong to Christ. He loves us unconditionally.

One of my favorite books in the Bible is Ruth. It’s a tiny book in the middle of the Old Testament that tells the story of a young woman who learned to come out of hiding. Ruth was born into a broken culture. In her home land, Moab, parents would sacrifice their own children to their gods in the hope that they would bless them with wealth. If anyone ever had a good excuse to hide, Ruth had about fifty, but even her messy background couldn’t stand a chance against the power of God’s love. Ruth married a Jewish man named Malhon, but before they were even able to start their family, he was killed along with his brother. His mother, Naomi, who had lost her husband years before her sons’ deaths, decided to return to Israel from Moab. She told her two daughter-in-laws to return to their parents’ homes where their fathers could provide for them because in their time in history, women couldn’t provide for themselves. Orpah, the other daughter-in-law, did as she was told but “Ruth replied, ‘Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die and there I will be buried,” (Ruth 1: 16 - 17). She left behind the safety of her home, family, and everything that she knew for Naomi to start a new life in a foreign land. She gave up the protection and security of her father’s household. In other words, she most likely would have had no way to get food or shelter. The ancient world was a man’s world and a woman without the protection of a father, brother, or husband, often would end up homeless, murdered, or raped. Ruth was taking a huge leap of faith into the arms of Jesus where only he could protect her.

In ancient Israel, the law that God gave the Jews told farmers to have their workers leave the last bit of wheat from their harvest in their field for the poor to collect. With no other options, Ruth was forced to scavenge for food in one such field when she and Naomi arrived in Israel. The owner of the field in which she went to collect wheat, whose name was Boaz, noticed her and asked some of his workers who she was. When they told him her story, he told them to protect her from the males working in the fields and let her take as much wheat and water from his well as she needed. Then, at lunch time, he invited her to eat with him and his workers.

When Ruth told Naomi about what Boaz had done for her, Naomi told her to go to him that night where he was sleeping at his threshing floor, “uncover his feet and lie down there,” (Ruth 3: 4). As strange as this may seem to us nowadays, in Baoz and Naomi’s culture this was a way for a widow to ask a man to redeem her. In other words, Naomi was telling Ruth to ask Boaz to marry her. Ruth did as she was told and Baoz married her. Later, she gave him a son who would begin a long line of descendants that eventually led to the birth of Jesus Chirst. God redeemed Ruth’s broken past and used her in incredible ways, but it all started with her taking a leap of faith. Not only was she risking rejection, but she was also opening her heart up again after losing her husband. After losing my dad, I found it a lot harder to open up to people and let myself love again because I was afraid of losing someone I loved all over again. By opening up to Boaz, she was exposing her heart completely so God could use Boaz to heal her. God called to her from her hiding place and enabled her to offer herself to the world, to Boaz, and most of all to him. He calls us each by name. He claims us and will redeem and heal us if we let him. If we take his hand and let him lead us out of hiding, he will use us, like he used Ruth, to change the world. All we have to do is take a leap of faith.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about The C.A.N Sisters’ Ministry, leave a comment below, check out our website, or email us at cansistersministry@gmail.com.