Ruth clung to her

Ruth 1:11-17 NASB

But Naomi said, "Return, my daughters. Why should you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?  "Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons,  would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me."  And they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
  Then she said, "Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law."  But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you  or  turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people  shall be  my people, and your God, my God.  "Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if  anything but  death parts you and me."

My thoughts -

Naomi had nothing to offer. She told Ruth and Orpah as much. Naomi had lost her husband and her sons, to whom Ruth and Orpah had been married. She told her daughters-in-law that she had nothing to offer. She begged them to leave her, to return home to their families, and to find themselves new husbands and new lives.

You can tell these women's hearts were breaking. All were widowed. All were despondent. It was a horrible situation. Orpah wept for Naomi and for herself as she did the only thing she could do. She left. It pained her but Naomi was right. This was the only way.

But Ruth refused. And she offered Naomi one of the most beautiful oaths, found in the above passage. She forged her life to Naomi's. She made a bond. She made a covenant. These vows are not unlike wedding vows.

"Where you go I will go. Where you live I will live. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God. Where you die I will die and be buried. And may the Lord take my life and even worse if anything but death separates us."

Ruth made this oath over Naomi's protestation. Ruth bound her life to her mother-in-law's knowing that Naomi had nothing to give her. She got nothing out of the deal but to love and care for and live with the woman whom she loved.

But Naomi had a relative, Boaz. Boaz heard what Ruth had done. And Boaz showed Ruth and Naomi kindness. Eventually Boaz married Ruth and she had a child with him. A boy. His name was Obed.

Obed eventually became the father of Jesse. Jesse then became the father of David. That David. King David. A man after God's own heart. Whose line eventually led to Jesus.