When looking for inspirational love stories, I’ll be honest: it is not typically my instinct to reach for the scriptures. But the story of Ruth and Boaz, in particular, has recently inspired me to cherish my own love story anew. Theirs is a story about the kind of love that lasts. In it, I noticed a quiet, undeniable truth: love naturally blossoms among covenants.
Promises made and kept bind even the bumpiest, most unpredictable journeys into an inevitable story of eternal love.
Ruth’s Heartbreak
Ruth’s story begins not with romance but with heartbreak. As a young Moabite woman, she is widowed and faced with a choice: stay in her homeland or follow her similarly bereaved mother-in-law, Naomi, back to Bethlehem.
Ruth pledges, “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God.”
Ruth is unquestionably, unwaveringly loyal. She seems to approach this difficult decision having already made up her mind: she has made family promises. As she chooses to journey into the unknown, her familial and spiritual loyalty begins paving a path that will guide world-changing generations. She is equipped to love wholly because she sees the greater story beyond her own.
Boaz’s Faithfulness
When they arrive at Bethlehem, Ruth finds work gleaning grain in a field to provide food for herself and Naomi. Boaz, a relative of Naomi, owns the field. “A mighty man of wealth,” he protects and cares for the two widows, keeping family promises without question.
Boaz is as perceptive as he is faithful. He notices Ruth and goes out of his way to protect and provide for her. He sees, beyond unconventional circumstances, an incredibly virtuous woman.
In Israelite culture, it was customary for the nearest male relative of a widowed woman to take her into his care through marriage. Together, they would bear and raise children under the name of the original father, “that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren.”
With this perspective, Ruth meekly approaches Boaz, and he embraces her as his own.
Bound Together
Love stories often conclude with a happily-ever-after wedding scene, but Ruth and Boaz’s covenant union is just the beginning. Together, they bless generations; their great-grandson is King David, and through his lineage comes none other than Jesus Christ.
Though the cultural conventions of their union are no longer as common, the principle behind the practice holds power: They believed in the immutable power of family covenants. Their love solidified through the assurance that their own circumstances were chapters securely bound into a much bigger love story—the love between God and His children.
Joyfully Ever After
My husband and I have been together for five years. I adore every detail in our love story. I never considered that seeing it as a chapter within a greater whole could make it so much more. I’m learning that earnest covenant keeping grants that empowering perspective.
Ruth and Boaz’s story wasn’t perfect; their circumstances were hardly idyllic. Still, the decisions they made were grounded in covenant loyalty, and those decisions solidified into stepping stones that led to each other. I’m sure they never imagined how beautifully it would all unfold.
Searching for the “one” can be exhilarating, maddening, heartbreaking, exhausting—but if there’s one thing I can confidently assert, it’s that the Lord is eager to help us find each other. We too can turn through pages of heartbreak and hopelessness with intent: We know the story continues. We know that frustrating, confusing circumstances are temporary. We know that even the most devastating losses are not endings.
Most of all, we trust that the “author and finisher of our faith” writes spectacular love stories. They are, I believe, His favorite to write.
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