Hank Smith:                      00:00:00             Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:00:03             It has just been a constant deconstruction by the Lord of my desires and plans and hopes, to a space of a constant okay, where are we going? I’ll go where you want me to go. I don’t always go happily at first, but I go. Then on my way, I work on my attitude. And eventually I can look back and see. Ruth has that eventually too. After when she does know Boaz and she’s blessed with a child that she didn’t get to have with her husband, I think it’s a look back and say, I’m so glad I went.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:39             Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with my co-host, John Bytheway, a mighty man of wealth. John I read that and it was the, actually the only thing I could find.

John Bytheway:               00:00:54             Oh. Well, if wealth is measured in a number of tiny die cast airplanes I have in my office, yeah, I’ll take it.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:01             You are very wealthy. Do you know he that hath eternal life is rich, John?

John Bytheway:               00:01:05             Yes. And friends and family, yeah, I feel blessed.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:09             John, we are privileged today to have with us Sister Lori Newbold. Lori, welcome to followHIM.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:01:14             Thank you. So glad to be here.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:16             Yeah. Oh, Lori. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time. When I told my sister, Jennefer Johnson, she is the director of women’s conference over at BYU. When I said, Jen, I’m going to have Lori Newbold. There was a hush that fell over the home. She gasped. She said, that woman is the greatest woman. That was a pretty good recommendation from my sister. John, we are going to be in Ruth and Samuel today. What comes to mind? What have you been thinking about as you’ve been prepping?

John Bytheway:               00:01:49             Hey, actually, I’ve been thinking about what I believe to be one of your favorite topics and that’s expectations, how life doesn’t unfold the way you expect and for Ruth. Wow. Naomi, it doesn’t unfold the way they think and yet they find great blessings in moving forward. So that’s what I was thinking about.

Hank Smith:                      00:02:09             Yeah. There are multiple examples in this lesson of perseverance in the face of difficult, difficult circumstances. Lori, as you’ve been looking at these two books, what are we going to do today? Where do you want to go?

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:02:26             John, if I could take what you just said, because that, that was on my mind as well and then maybe go one more step that then leads me to say, what do they know about the Savior and their Father in heaven that causes them to stay with him when life doesn’t go like they planned? To me, both Ruth and Naomi and then also Boaz. And then when you get into 1 Samuel, Hannah’s probably one of my favorite women in all of creation with her faith in God and I even love her husband Elkanah. So many different ways that faith in God is demonstrated when blessings aren’t as forthcoming, maybe at the timeframe that we wanted, especially given sometimes my personal circumstance, these just have been really strong pillars to me of remembering how aware Father in heaven is and how much he’s involved because I see while they’re not mentioned many times in these chapters, I see the Savior on every page and throughout the entire story. So for me, that’s what these chapters are about, is just evidence of his goodness and essentially hesed.

Hank Smith:                      00:03:34             Hmm, that’s fantastic. Something I haven’t thought of before, I’m sure both of you have, is that here’s Ruth, not an Israelite, but brought into the covenant and I’ve wondered if this could be a symbol of someone coming into the House of Israel and being accepted by Boaz or by the Savior, a very wealthy man who is ready to bless people who want to join the covenant. And not only does she join the covenant, but she is, what, the great multiple great grandmother of the Lord showing up in the gospel of Matthew and the Savior’s family tree there. John, can you tell us why in the world my sister would be so enamored with Lori Newbold and it’s not just my sister. I’ve heard from many, many people that Lori Newbold is as great as anyone ever born. She is like the John the Baptist of church education. Talk to us, John, what do we know about Lori?

John Bytheway:               00:04:38             Lori is a lover of truth and all things about Jesus Christ. She’s an awesome aunt of 20, a great aunt of one. She is currently a BYU religion teacher, a sun and beach lover, oh I like that, mediocre pickleball player, connoisseur of chocolate milk, chronic pain warrior, lover of people, disciple of Christ. She’s from South Jordan, Utah, got her Bachelor of Science in Psychology at BYU, her master’s of science in mental health counseling from the University of Phoenix. She worked for seminaries and institutes. Sometimes we call them S&I from 2006 to 2025, including seven years with seminary training services. She currently teaches at BYU, like I said. She’s also worked part-time as a mental health therapist. I also learned she served a mission in Cincinnati, Ohio. Go Bengals. Are you an NFL fan? So welcome, Lori. And I used to see you down when you were on the Young Women General Advisory Council under President Cordon.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:05:45             Yeah, God’s been kind and gave lots of opportunities, so.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:50             And I think she’s stake young women’s president right now. Is that right, Lori?

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:05:54             I am.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:55             Wow.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:05:55             Which I love.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:56             You’re a busy woman. Lori, this is going to be a treat today. You’re a seasoned teacher and you love the Lord and you love to help people. We’re going to have a great day. Let’s start in the Come, Follow Me Manual. The lesson is my heart rejoices in the Lord, Ruth and then the opening chapters of 1 Samuel. “Sometimes we imagine that our lives should follow a clear path from beginning to end. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line after all, and yet life is often full of delays and detours that take us in unexpected directions. Ruth and Hannah surely understood this. Ruth was not an Israelite, but she married one and when her husband died, she had a choice to make. Would she return to her family and her old familiar life or would she embrace the Israelite faith and a new home with her mother-in-law?

                                           00:06:43             Hannah’s plan for her life was to bear children, but she could not and that left her in bitterness of soul. As you read about Ruth and Hannah, consider the faith they must have had to journey these unexpected paths. Then think about your own journey. It’s different from Ruth and Hannah’s and anyone else’s, but throughout the trials and surprises between here and your eternal destination, you can learn to say with Hannah, ‘My heart rejoices in the Lord.'” Lori, what a beautiful way to start. There’s going to be listeners all over saying, that’s me. My life has taken some delay and detour and it does not look the way I thought it would. With that, how do you want to start this?

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:07:24             I know this sounds kind of a weird way to start anything but to say that I’m really grateful for all of the things my life hasn’t turned into that I initially wanted and prayed for when I was younger. I love that quote that, men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that he will make far more of them than they ever could. It’s a poor paraphrase. But I think we see that in so many circumstances like start with Naomi, for example. Even I wonder in Ruth chapter one verse one, there’s a famine in the land which is going to drive them from Bethlehem to Moab in the first place. And if there’s a famine that tells you something about hardship even with her husband and her children alive. Sometimes we pick up after the death of all of them and that’s kind of where her story begins, but I think it actually starts in verse one where we can ask questions about what she understands about God and about trusting him in hardship.

                                           00:08:27             It’s interesting to me, one of the things that I saw between the two of them, by them I mean Naomi and Hannah is that in Ruth chapter one when she comes back, which we’ll get to in just a second, but when she comes back to Bethlehem with Ruth in verse 20, she says, she said, “Call me not Naomi,” which actually literally translates to pleasant, call me Mara, which is a name given to Naomi by herself, which means bitter or very sad. You capture just from the very beginning, those are in the footnotes, her emotion about her current circumstance. Then if you go to 1 Samuel chapter one and when it expresses when Hannah is at the door of the temple in verse 10 of chapter one, the description is, “And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore.” Now a clarity, like bitterness can look at a couple things, but both of these tend to connect bitterness more to sadness or grief.

                                           00:09:30             One of the things sometimes that we don’t always recognize is that it’s okay to feel emotion. You’re going to get the mental health side of me coming out from the get go of this because one of the ways that I connect best is that when people are real in scripture, I think we have to be careful to not place emotion on them, but I also think it’s okay to recognize when they declare it themselves to say, Naomi has had a lot to grieve. Hannah has had a lot to grieve. When life doesn’t go like you plan, it is okay to grieve the loss of dreams. It is okay to grieve the loss of expectations. In fact, in some ways, that’s the healthier avenue so that you can create space in your heart for a new dream. Lots of whys, I think, tend to fly in there and I think that’s okay.

                                           00:10:17             The wrestling with God sometimes is to take that emotion to him and to recognize emotion doesn’t have to determine. It just can be experienced. And we see that from the very beginning here imagining the grief and the pain of losing a husband and then losing two sons and especially culturally what that means too, because sons would be the continuation of her name, of their posterity to lose both sons and to have neither, you know, after 10 years and then to have no grandkids from either of those says, this is the end of our line because now I’m too old to remarry and have more children. In addition to just losing her sons and her husband who you know she loves and adores is pretty evident, even by the relationship with her daughter-in-laws. I could see that pain in verse three when it talks about it, and Elimelech, Naomi’s husband died and she was left and her two sons and then they took wives of women of Moab, the name of one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth, and they dwelled there about 10 years.

                                           00:11:21             And then those two sons died also both of them and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. I don’t currently have children on the earth. I always joke that I have them. They’re just on a play date with Heavenly Father in the premortal life. So maybe the two of you could speak a little better to the imagination of losing two of your sons or two of your children. And what she might be feeling with that loss.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:45             Lori, I spend my life with Latter-day Saints, so I imagine people of other faiths are like this, but especially the college students I work with, they don’t like to feel sadness. It’s… I had one student just this last year said, Brother Smith, I’m sad. And I said, well, why are you sad? She was attending an event at UVU that was tragic. I said, yeah, you’re going to be sad. I don’t want to be sad. I think she wanted a scripture or a quote or just to get rid of that emotion and say, no, I’m okay. And here’s why I’m okay. I like that you said that. It’s okay just to be sad. In fact, it’s pretty healthy to just sit in an uncomfortable emotion for a little while, but I can’t imagine this.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:12:30             I also think sometimes culturally we present that if you are faithful, you won’t be sad. When you connect to Isaiah 53, the Savior is described himself as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. That doesn’t come by finding your way out of sadness as soon as it comes. It’s being familiar with. The easiest way for me to frame all life experience is I have to put it in the context of becoming like God. Otherwise, I think mortality is the worst. For me. Seriously, I’m like, I can’t be here unless these things are changing my nature and helping me become like him because if I do that then when, to experience sorrow and to experience grief and to allow myself to do so, knowing that it actually is helping me, or it can be if I’m choosing Christ and I’m not choosing anger for long term.

                                           00:13:27             If I’m choosing him, then it can be for the development of my God-like attributes rather than just a hiccup of mortality that we get rid of because happiness means no sorrow. I mean, our father in heaven right now, can you imagine the sorrow of the way his kids treat each other? He lives right now in sorrow and in joy. You can feel them in the same space recognizing to your point, I don’t know anybody who’s like, I just love sadness. If I could have more of that in my life. Most of us are trying to figure a way out of it, but learning to sit in it and be with it can be really powerful by way of saying, okay, this is actually can be refining.

Hank Smith:                      00:14:10             We live in a world of painkillers. I get kidney stones occasionally and I want this pain gone immediately. I’m begging my wife, take me to the hospital. When we get to the hospital, I’m begging the nurses, get this pain away. But emotional pain, there’s not a painkiller.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:14:28             There’s no ibuprofen.

Hank Smith:                      00:14:29             Yeah. It just, you’re going to sit with this for a while.

John Bytheway:               00:14:32             If you go through your life and your experiences are always shallow, then dare I say you could remain kind of a shallow person, but if your experiences are deep, you experience that kind of hurt and sadness, you also have great joy, your ability to empathize and to your heart to be touched for others when they’re going through something, I think what you were saying, Lori, was you feel those things to help you become like God because he’s feeling it too. You go through those depths of sorrow experiences, you become more of a deep person and you feel compassion for other people when they’re going through it too. I mean, this whole book starts with, “There was a famine in the land.” Now I’m coming from 21st century, I don’t even know what that’s like. I’ve never experienced what they call food insecurity. Imagine that and then all of this death coming as well. We go past that sentence in the scriptures a lot and there was a famine and no refrigeration, no preservatives, but boy, I hadn’t even thought about what that might be like. Like, I don’t know what I’m going to eat tonight. And then you have a family. Wow, I just can’t imagine.

Hank Smith:                      00:15:49             Yeah. And she’s in poverty. When you asked what would it be like to lose children, it’s scary to even venture your mind there, let alone live in this situation. I just, oh, my heart just breaks reading this. And the more I read scripture, the more into it I get, the more I visualize, the more I see it and, you know, this is a heartbreaking thing to think of. And she even tells her daughters-in-law, right, Lori? Like, you can leave me.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:16:16             I’m confident there’s women who are listening and men who are listening to this. My own mother included, lost a baby. I’m at four months driving to the mall and SIDS sudden infant death syndrome in the car seat, in the backseat. If there’s an attribute of my mom that I admire probably the most, is her faith in God. So I think that there’s people listening to this podcast that are, I would say, modern day Ruth’s and Naomi’s and Boaz’s, but this particular in Naomi, they understand both the bitterness of soul and then the sweetness because to your point, there’s not an ibuprofen for emotional pain and there is a God and an atonement that can take the edge off of. That’s what makes me wonder to a degree because why does Naomi keep going? To your point, she’s lost. I mean, they go through this right again historically if she loses her line and then also she’s in Moab, which is not her land of her inheritance.

                                           00:17:18             That’s going to be back in Bethlehem. She’s going to go back, the famine comes to an end. In verse six, she realizes that the Lord had visited people in giving them bread or another way of saying the famine in Bethlehem is done, so she’s going to head back. And then even praises in verse eight, to your point in her own suffering, Naomi said unto her two daughters-in-law, “Go each to her mother’s house, the Lord deal kindly with you.” In this, the actual translation of the word kindly or to deal kindly is hesed as you have dealt with the dead and with me. I love the story here so much of Ruth because here’s another cool thing about this book. So Ruth and Esther are our only female books in the Old Testament. This is a chapter that elevates women. I mean, even to say, “Go back to your mother’s house” other than your father’s house, is this focus here on this women.

                                           00:18:15             So I think sometimes recognizing for just a minute, like the power of really faithful, real women who are struggling with a variety of things coming here though to President Nelson when he talks about hesed and he said, “hesed has no adequate equivalent. Translators of the King James version of the Bible must have struggled with how to render hesed in English. They often chose lovingkindness. This captures much but not all the meaning of hesed. Other translations were also rendered such as mercy and goodness. It hesed is a unique term describing a covenant relationship in which both parties are bound to be loyal and faithful to each other.” She acknowledges what they have done for her. John, when you talked about even like the feelings allowing us to be able to empathize with people, what came to my mind was Mosiah 18. The covenant that we make at baptism is this ability that we are willing to bear one another’s burdens, which is what we see Ruth do in this beautiful way, even though we don’t know that she’s covenanted yet.

                                           00:19:25             We know she’s married and been married for 10 years, but we don’t know that she’s covenanted yet, but then comes in nine, this is for all of us too. We are willing to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. If I can point something out, the language of this, to mourn with those that mourn not to comfort those that mourn. And lots of times we try to give comfort to those that mourn because we’re uncomfortable with their pain and the Lord says, I can comfort. The Holy Ghost, that’s his role perfectly. He knows how, he knows what. Sometimes there are not mortal words that you could say to somebody in their pain that is going to make a single thing better. Just mourn with those that mourn. As we experience the sadness and grief, you got to believe that Ruth is going to be sitting in some pretty serious sorrow with Naomi.

                                           00:20:19             When Naomi comes back and describes herself as bitter, those two are together full-time. It’s probably not jokes and laughter all the way back to Bethlehem. They’re both mourning the loss of Ruth’s husband. There’s some space in there to say, hey, this bearing one another’s burdens that they may be light and hesed we see so beautifully in the daughters towards Naomi at this moment, which is, I would call a messenger of God.

Hank Smith:                      00:20:46             Lori, I think also, what is Naomi like that these two daughters-in-law are saying, we want to stay with you. What kind of mother-in-law? No mother-in-law jokes, I promise. But, what kind of mother-in-law is she that her two daughters-in-law are widows and maybe they have a chance at a different life back in Moab. They don’t want to leave her, neither of them. I think it tells you something about her and she’s saying, you have to leave me. This broke my heart. It grieveth me much for your sakes.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:21:22             I actually, Hank, asked the very same question this time in reading it. I found myself thinking, man, what is it about Naomi? This is where I say she’s such an amazing model of hesed. She leaves everything, because there’s a chance, or I think part of the reason Naomi encouraged them to go back that they could still remarry and still have kids and family in the Moabites. And when Ruth agrees to go, she doesn’t know there’s a Boaz. We have the end of the story, but they don’t. Ruth just leaves saying, no, I will literally give up everything to take care of you, to show you love, to support, because she knows Naomi’s probably going to be too old to glean the fields. Yes, there comes a point where they allow the, those who are poor to come and glean them, but age is going to wear on her.

                                           00:22:10             She’s not going to remarry because she’s going to be too old of her own … She’s not going to have any more sons. She even says that. Essentially, right in verse 12, Turn again, my daughters go your way for I’m too old to have an husband. If I should say I have hope if I should have a husband also tonight and should bear also sons, would you tarry with them till they were grown? Would you stay for them from having husbands nay my daughters it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. I love her thoughtfulness of them in a true mother heart. Like, no, please go. As hard as it is, I’ve lost everything, but will you please go because this in her mind would be best for them. You don’t follow or pronounce for going, but you do see just this really beautiful love of Naomi and their behalf.

                                           00:22:57             Like I love this tug of war of generosity between these two women. You go back because it’ll bless you. No, I’m staying with you because it’ll bless you. No, you go back because it’ll bless you. No, I’m staying with you. And I actually don’t want to hear another word about it. We love these verses so much in 16 through 18 as we see her come, which I think is just so beautiful hesed. I like to say this is how I feel about my Father in heaven. This would be my declaration to him. Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest I will lodge and thy people shall be my people and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me and more also if ought but death part thee and me.

                                           00:23:55             In order for Ruth to go and be buried away from her family is almost unheard of in the ancient world. Even so much so that when she gets to Bethlehem, she’s known as the Moabite who came with Naomi. People are astonished at her faithfulness that she would leave her family, that she would leave her gods. As a Moabite, she probably would have been with Chemosh and she would leave, for her to say, your God will be my God, is also not … At the time of the Judges, everybody’s going after their own heart. That’s actually how it ends in 25 that they did that which was right in his own eyes. A lot of them believed in just adding to gods and mixing it up. So for her to replace her gods with Yahweh is an amazing declaration to say, I’m giving up literally everything to take care of you, Naomi, and to stay with you. She just becomes this unreal model to me of hesed.

Hank Smith:                      00:24:56             Lori, don’t you think Naomi must have been telling these two about Jehovah because Ruth says, thy God will be my God. So one, she knows about Jehovah, and two, what has Naomi said about Jehovah? That this is her lot in life. These are her circumstances, and Ruth is still saying, I want that, that God. Naomi must be saying, yes, my life is incredibly difficult. Let me tell you about how great my God is. And Ruth is saying, okay. Because I might look at that and go, I don’t think I want to follow your God. Your life has not turned out.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:25:37             Hmm. One of the things we don’t know is, like, I mean, she was married to her son for 10 years, so we don’t know what she actually knows about the Israelites other than whatever you would learn about their culture and beliefs. We don’t have any record of any type of, like, conversion by what we would say, but this declaration seems to say, hey, I’m willing to go and become with that. But if it’s true Israel, I mean, they can’t help but it’s who they are to speak of God and to talk about the God who has delivered and delivered her people and a covenant people. It’s a beautiful question that I wonder also, like, what did she say and what did it sound like? And did they pray together? What was that like? There’s a timeframe when I lived at home later in my single years and my mom was still single.

                                           00:26:22             My parents had divorced when I was young so my mom didn’t remarry till I was, like, 31 I think something like that. So I lived with her for a little while. I remember praying we would have family prayer was just the two of us and I love to hear my mom pray. I love to listen to her talk to God and especially pray for me. It meant the world to me. I wonder in these moments too if Ruth has had the gift of praying with Naomi and hearing her faith. It’s a question mark. I love to wonder in scripture. Like I have lots of, way more questions than answers, but I think it’s a fun wonder.

John Bytheway:               00:26:56             I just think sometimes in the scriptures, they stack these poetic things together For her to say, call me Mara, because wasn’t it Mara where the water was bitter and Moses threw the tree in and it became sweetened and some have said that trees are people often in the scriptures and maybe this tree is Christ and it made bitter things sweet. This whole story is how Jehovah can make bitter things sweet, I guess.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:27:24             Definitely it ends on that very note, John, like this, the end of the story in chapter four, when verse 16, and Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became a nurse unto it. And the women, her neighbors gave it a name saying, there is a son born to Naomi who is Obed. We’ll get there I know in a second, but I think that that’s a beautiful evidence of how the Savior does make this a sweetness.

Hank Smith:                      00:27:52             Perhaps she knows the story. She’s saying, call me bitter. Maybe it’s a moment of faith too. He will make this sweet. We may have some listeners out there who have sons-in-law or daughters-in-law who you would say Ruth is not a member of the faith. I love that. For years, she loved her, as we might say it, her non-member daughter-in-law. You don’t have very many examples of that in scripture, do you, of part member families? The way they’ve interacted and treated each other? I think it’s beautiful. That phrase, you guys, I will go. I’m seeing that’s coming up more and more in the Old Testament. Nephi had some examples to follow. Wasn’t it Rebekah earlier who said, I will go?

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:28:35             This overall theme about life not turning out like you planned, I think you have a choice when it doesn’t. You can either hunker down and express the anger and frustration to God, or you can go where he’s taking you. When I graduated from BYU years ago, I don’t even know who this person was, to be really honest. I can’t remember the name. I just remember the talk. The talk was at my commencement was really simple of, you know, my wife and I, all I really ever wanted, we just wanted to serve a mission. So the second we got married, we started putting away money and saving for our mission. So their entire married life, they did it and they were thrilled and they were so excited that the day their last child graduated at 18, they started their papers. This is him telling us the story.

                                           00:29:26             Starts the papers, go in for medical, zero signs, and she’s diagnosed with cancer. He said, you know, we had that moment where like, are you kidding? Like this is all we wanted our whole lives and it’s a righteous desire and we’re trying to do and we’ve lived faithful. You know, he said that and he said, so we realized that in that moment we had a choice. We could either be bitter or we could create a new dream. And he said, so if I have one piece of advice for you guys as you graduate, go forward, it’s to write your dreams in pencil. I would love to someday tell this man, he has no idea how that is exactly what my entire adult life has been. Even if I go back to like middle school and high school, it has just been a constant deconstruction by the Lord of my desires and plans and hopes to a space of a constant, okay, where are we going?

                                           00:30:19             I’ll go where you want me to go. I don’t always go happily at first, but I go, then on my way, I work on my attitude. And eventually I can look back and see Ruth has that eventually too. After when she does know Boaz and she’s blessed with a child that she didn’t get to have with her husband, I think it’s a look back and say, man, I’m so glad I went. Lots of times I say, yeah, I will go because I want to be able to say I’m so glad that I went. It’s a journey that I take with the Savior. Pick up in two, she goes and they get to Bethlehem, then comes her saying, all right, well, Naomi, I’m going to go and start to get us food. And culturally, what they would do is in the fields, they would leave the edges so that people who were poor, it was a covenant responsibility by Israel to take care of the poor and to take care of widows and to take care of refugees.

                                           00:31:16             At this, we see Ruth is a refugee. Essentially, what they do is they leave that so that they can come and glean or harvest and pick up both on the edges. And then if we see this fun interaction, this is where I start to love the character of Boaz because Ruth is gleaning. She’s starting to pull and gather that. Well, Boaz comes to the field in verse five, “Whose damsel is this?” He sees her and who is this? The servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, “It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab.” She’s not named. This is the woman we’ve all been talking about who left everything to be with Naomi. It is incredible. And she said, I pray, now her guts to go to him and say, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.

                                           00:32:09             So she came and hath continued even from the morning until now that she tarried a little. Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens. The beauty of Boaz to say, you don’t need to go and go to a bunch of here and I’m going to treat you not like a refugee on the outside. You come and you glean as if you’re one of us. And he protects her. In nine, have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? Suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t safe for women? Sometimes to go and do this, extra effort. You can glean anywhere in the field, not just on the edges. I’m going to protect you from anybody that harms you. And then verse 10 and her response, she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground.

                                           00:32:58             Why? Have I found grace in thine eyes that thou shouldst take knowledge of me seeing that I am a stranger? I’m a refugee. I’m a foreigner. Why are you being so kind? And I love 11 because actually Boaz blesses like his response to her. It has been fully showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband. It’s her own character, but I love that Boaz sees it. Then in 12 gives her a blessing which will become beautiful and later on too. The Lord recompense thy work or compensate and a full reward be given thee of the Lord of God of Israel under whose wings thou art come to trust. Wings are a symbol in scripture for power or protection, even shade. You have no shade anywhere and wings provide shade, so it’s the safety and this protection for them.

                                           00:33:55             But the Greek, I don’t even know how to pronounce it official, but the Hebrew would is kanap, K-A-N-A-P. It’s the same ones that are going to be when she asked for him to spread his skirt over her. It’s this, essentially her asking for the fulfillment of this blessing that he’s offering or praying for her. I think sometimes when we see the poor, we give the minimal fast offering or we do the small thing. We give the excess in our pantries to the food drive and Boaz is like next level.

John Bytheway:               00:34:25             I just now colored in that phrase, the Lord recompense thy work. It reminded me of a poem of President Benson who does God’s work will get God’s pay, or one that he used to quote. You can’t put the Lord in your debt. We never can. He honors those who honor him and…in time. Boaz saw, was so impressed with her loyalty. That verse 11 is awesome. I saw what you’ve done to your mother-in-law at the death of thine husband. I was going to mention something that only those who are in their 60s or 70s might remember. Speaking of changing names for different groups within the church, when I was a kid, I used to see posters for the M Men and Gleaners. They must have got the Gleaners, that was what to call the females were the Gleaners after Ruth. Does that ring a bell to you, Lori?

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:35:25             Oh yeah. We went through all the names historically, right when we, when the, in the counseling, the very first decision to even have any of them to not go by names, just be known by young women. So we went through all of them. So fun. John, when you brought up compensation too, my mind went to Mosiah 2 and King Benjamin, the concept of the minute, the second that you serve him.

John Bytheway:               00:35:52             Immediately. Yeah.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:35:53             He immediately blesses you.

John Bytheway:               00:35:55             He doth bless you.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:35:56             And then he lends you breath that you may live and move and do according to your own and supporting you from one moment to where I say, if you should serve him with all your whole souls yet would you be unprofitable servants. So I think it’s this compensation that he gives to Ruth through Boaz is again an evidence of a father in heaven more than is anything else. This moment is, yes, Boaz is amazing and we recognize where every good thing comes from and who every good thing comes through and clearly her Father in heaven couldn’t be more grateful for her choice to go with Naomi and take care of her in whose wings thou art come to trust. That also tells us, I think, something about Ruth coming to know God, the God of Israel.

John Bytheway:               00:36:45             That was new to her, according to way that the story started. She was not an Israelite.

Hank Smith:                      00:36:52             I don’t know if either of you know this story. I bet you do. We have our own latter day Ruth. This article was written by Kristy Wheelwright Taylor, talks about Phoebe Woodruff. Listen to how similar these two stories are. Phoebe was living with her family in Maine. She was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Maine in 1834 and she chose to follow her new faith. This is what she wrote. She said, “My friends marveled at my course.” I think that’s her decision, “as did I. But something within impelled me on. My mother’s grief at my leaving home was almost more than I could bear and had it not been for the spirit within, I should have faltered. My mother told me she would rather see me buried than going thus alone out into the heartless world.

                                           00:37:43             When the time came for my departure, I dared not trust myself to say farewell so I wrote my goodbyes to each, leaving them on my table, ran downstairs and jumped into the carriage. Thus, I left the beloved home of my childhood to link my life with the saints of God.” The next year, she ends up meeting Wilford Woodruff and they marry in Kirtland and you both know Wilford is like the world’s greatest missionary. She serves some of those missions with him to England and the Fox Islands, other places. They serve a mission together from 1845 to 1846 in England and some of their children are left back in the States with family and friends. Then they lose two of their youngest sons in Winter Quarters and a nine-month-old daughter in 1848. They finally settle with the saints in Salt Lake City in 1850. Wilford Woodruff, the President of The Church, this is how he described Phoebe.

                                           00:38:47             This is after returning from a mission. He says, “I soon found that the same spirit which had inspired her to embrace the fullness of the gospel, forsake her friends and go a journey of a thousand miles to enjoy the society of the saints and had united her heart and hand with my own and caused her to accompany me to the islands of the sea was with her still. Yes, Phoebe possesses too much firmness and faith in God and confidence in God to put her hand to the plow and look back or wholly give way to such trials and any other however great. She is determined like Ruth to forsake her kindred and country for Christ’s sake and my own and the cause in which she is engaged. As I behold this principle beaming in her daily walk, heart and countenance, it binds my whole soul to her in love stronger than death.

                                           00:39:42             Yes, that love that none partakes of except those in like circumstances and that man that will not love his wife with all of his heart after she has made such a sacrifice for his sake is not worthy of a companion or a standing in human society.” How many people do we know of who gave up so much to join the saints? I love that Boaz says, oh, I’ve heard of you.

John Bytheway:               00:40:08             Just a week ago from the time of our recording, I went to the open house of my wife’s next door neighbor when she was growing up. It was his 90th birthday. His name is Wilford Bruce Woodruff. He was the stake president that signed our marriage recommend, so I told him I was once again grateful for that, but he, I think great-great-grandson of Wilford Woodruff. I wanted to give him a shout out because I, he, I think he listens.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:40:33             As you shared that, I’ve been sitting here thinking in some ways isn’t this the call to every one of us to leave, whether it be a life that we knew or desires, again, going back to dreams perhaps that we had along those ways, like at some point I think in our relationship with the Savior, we all have to have that moment where we choose him above anything and anyone else. So each of us are coming out from, I mean, you could sub Moab for any land of dreams or expectations that you might have had. In an effort of hesed, when Ruth leaves, essentially she’s choosing unhappiness because she’s choosing to leave all of her posterity that she could have had if she had remarried in her mind. Again, she doesn’t know there’s a Boaz. My relationship with God ongoing, he’s asking me to do things and leave behind what I thought my life would be, where I thought my life would go and even sometimes what I’m really enjoying currently to go somewhere new and do something different or hard.

                                           00:41:47             Nephi’s not begging to leave Jerusalem. In fact, chapter two tells us he cried unto the Lord and he softened his heart. Well, that tells you something about how Nephi felt about his experience. I think it’s Elder Andersen that says, “Faith is not by chance but by choice.” And each of us is backed up to a wall where we have to make that choice that even doesn’t make any sense whatsoever other than the God that we know to go forward with whatever path is ahead of us. I have long loved the hymn, I’ll go where you want me to go. If by a still small voice you call to pass that I do not know, I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine, I’ll go where you want me to go. We prove fidelity to him, which seems so small compared to the fidelity he’s proven to us and yet there is a demand that we do prove that because in the ancient world, faith is relational.

                                           00:42:54             It’s not about outcomes. Lots of times we talk about faith like, if I have enough faith, then I’ll get this thing. I’ll receive that blessing. I’ll find my husband. I’ll receive healing, like faith is always to an outcome of some circumstance in our conversation. I prayed for this and I had enough faith to have that. In covenant fidelity, our relationship with God, faith is all about relational. My faith is in Jesus Christ, not in an outcome, which is what allows Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego say, listen, we know our God is able to deliver us, but if not, we’re still not going to worship your God anyway. And then the Savior’s in the fire with them. For so many of us, like, I know that God can take away my cancer, but if not… I trust in a God who knows what is absolute best for me and my family and all the people involved in my circumstance.

                                           00:43:48             I know God can find me a husband, but if not… I know that God can help my husband find a job, but if not… I know that God can lead me to somebody for my child to help, but if not… I mean, all of these spaces in my mind a different level of faith when we’re talking about it’s in a being. The one true being who understands perfectly everything about us because he took it on and he suffered it in Gethsemane so that he would know how to take care of us in our moment so he knew perfectly how to understand, how to carry, how to lift, how to bless, how to guide. He knew everything that I would think and feel when he asked me to leave Jerusalem. He knew how hard it would be for me. I think he literally looks upon us with like a deep gratitude that we go when we don’t want to go because he’s experienced all the emotion that we’re going through in that moment and I think he loves us even more and it builds our relationship when I do those things that he asks and then I learn more about him and always, I mean, it literally always turns out for my benefit long run, he never gives a timeframe for his blessings, which is so annoying

                                           00:45:08             Lots of times, right? I’m like, yeah, like I’m reading some of these again, like, yeah, these are the promises. And I’m like, when do those promises come to pass? His timing is one thing for me, although I do recognize President Oaks reminds us that is part of having faith in him and we’re going to see that with Hannah too and we get to her in a few minutes, like he has promised her and he never said when. As we look at the timing of it, if you’re not receiving your blessings yet and if you’re going where the Lord wants you to go, hang on, because he always, always fulfills his promises. He cannot not fulfill his promises or he will cease to be God. So you can trust that and you can go with that. This call, this example of Ruth is something that each of us is really going to have to say, I will go and then once I get there, like I said at the beginning of two, she goes and she gleans, but then this is what’s wild to me.

                                           00:46:06             If you keep going, then maybe it’s me not understanding each world very well, but I’m trying to think of a more awkward request than when Naomi says, okay, now that Boaz, who by the way is their near kin or a family member, we find out, now go lay at his feet and essentially ask him to marry you. She says, okay. What? Like this moment of she is ongoing, like it isn’t that she just came with Naomi. Okay, now go glean, she goes and gleans. Now she comes back and tells who Boaz is and the way that he treated her beautifully back to 2:20. “Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord who have not left off his kindness.” Again, the word translates here to hesed, “To the living and to the dead and Naomi said unto her, the man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen,” which leads us into the concept of a goel is what that translates or, or a redeemer and the goel at the time essentially too is Israel’s covenant to care for widows.

                                           00:47:15             The essential line is that if a brother passes, then the other brother has a responsibility to take care of, right? Or they have, they go down the line and this next of kin has this responsibility to provide for and take care of. And that’s why they’re often known as a redeemer, to redeem whether it be the land or the family, that’s what the word translates into of goel, which is kind of a fun obviously moment we see Boaz who has no relationship other than knowing that Naomi is his family, come to redeem Naomi in this experience. The rule is the nearest of kin has the first opportunity of responsibility. There’s questions about how Ruth knew which field to go to, because when she started gleaning, she didn’t know that Boaz, she knows his field, she didn’t know that he was a family member, but by divine providence, she ends up there.

                                           00:48:07             So does she have a feeling? We don’t know, but we just know she ends up there and then Naomi’s like, guess what? That’s our family member. He is the next kinsman. Then if you jump to chapter three, then that’s essentially what she tells her. She says, hey, verse three, wash thyself, anoint thee, put on raiment and get thee down to the floor but make not thyself known unto the man until he shall have done eating and drinking. She gets ready and she goes down to the threshing floor, which is typically where only men are working with the harvest, and he goes to bed or he lays down essentially to go to sleep. And then I love verse five because this is the statement of Ruth to Naomi’s request. “She said unto her, all that thou sayest unto me I will do.” What an amazing meekness and humility that Ruth possesses.

                                           00:49:01             And then verse six, so she went down unto the floor and did it according to all that her mother-in-law bade her. Again, all that her mother-in-law bade her, she just followed her command. And I love here again, Naomi wants her daughter-in-law to be happy and to be married. You can also feel like this mom kicking in again, like this mama bear saying, hey, this is also an opportunity for you to receive blessings. And yes, it will also be a blessing for Naomi, but you know that she cares about Ruth’s best interest as well. This has been a man who gave us far beyond what we should have with gleaning. This is a man who is our relative. God clearly has provided this. Let’s go to capitalize on it. Then verse seven, she goes down and it says she came softly and uncovered his feet and laid her down and it came to pass that at midnight. The man was afraid and turned himself and the suggestion was maybe he was startled, maybe he recognized somebody who was at his feet. I mean, there’s … We don’t know exactly what the reference is there.

                                           00:50:05             “But who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid, spread forth thy skirt over thine handmaid for thou art a near kinsmen.” So again, skirt here is the same word back in the other verse as wings in Ruth 2:20 and his response, “Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning.” What a beautiful declaration of her character. “Inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich, and now my daughter fear not, I will do thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.” Then he does.

                                           00:50:45             He said, I’ll go, but there is one who is closer of kin. So I’ll go meet with him essentially, and that’s what you see in the beginning of chapter 4, he goes and he meets with him and the individual wants the land, but then once he tells him that he also has a responsibility for Ruth and Naomi, then he says, no, you can, you can have them. But he goes and fulfills everything that he promised her that he would do, which is pretty amazing to me.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:12             Yeah. It’s interesting to me that Boaz, we don’t know his whole story, right? We get Ruth’s story and he’s in the background, but he meets Ruth because he’s keeping the law. He is leaving some of the grain for the poor. And Lori, you said that that was part of the law of Moses. I thought of President Uchtdorf’s statement in seeking to answer other people’s prayers we often find the answer to our own. He could have said, no, we’re not going to leave anything for the poor. This is my grain. But in leaving that, doing what the Lord asked him to do, he finds the answer to his prayer. Little side lesson I love.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:51:51             I think that’s beautiful as well.

John Bytheway:               00:51:53             These wonderful things often happen when you’re in the path of your duty. You’re doing the right thing. And I love what Lori said about faith and outcomes because I think the first principle of the gospel is not faith, it’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes we might be trying to exercise faith in the outcome we want instead of putting it in the Lord’s hands and saying, like you said, I’ll go where you want me to go. I’ll be what you want me to be. And that’s an easy song to sing, harder to do. But that’s where real faith is. My personal example was when my brother needed a kidney, we all thought dad has the priesthood, we’ll pray our hearts out and we have faith that dad can heal David. And then it turned out that we had a member of The Seventy come and give David a blessing and we thought he was going to heal him and he didn’t.

                                           00:52:45             He said, your body will not reject the new element and he meant me. But it turned out to be such an amazing thing. In fact, this week was our 36th anniversary of that transplant, but it was should we exercise faith in the way we want it to turn out or should we just say faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and let him work out the details, which is, that’s what real faith is, as you said, Lori.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:53:13             What made you want to give your brother your kidney 36 years ago?

John Bytheway:               00:53:19             I knew I had a spare. I mean, there’s a lot of things. They tested the whole family and I was the closest match. I was a six antigen match. They tested six areas back then. I also, he was my oldest, firstborn son in our family and I wanted to help my brother. Of course, that was part of it too. And my friendship with my brother has never been the same since that day.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:47             Yeah. He never gave it back, did he?

John Bytheway:               00:53:50             No. He wants the other one and I said I’m fresh out, but…

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:53:56             You remind me of Ruth and I know you wouldn’t say it, but that’s exactly what we’re talking about. And it’s amazing too because sometimes my devotion to God is easier for me than my devotion to another human to love a brother. Those are the kinds of moments we’re talking about by character and development of becoming like God. With this faith, I thought a lot about President Christofferson’s talk too on our relationship with God in April of 2022 and when he said we ought not to think of God’s plan as a cosmic vending machine where we select a desired blessing, insert the required sum of good works. And three, then the order is promptly delivered. We do our best but must leave to him the management of blessings, both temporal and spiritual. What our heavenly father offers us is himself and his son. A close and enduring relationship with them through the grace and mediation of Jesus Christ, our redeemer.

                                           00:54:53             In the midst of this refiner’s fire, rather than get angry with God, get close to God, call upon the father in the name of the son, walk with them in the spirit day by day, allow them over time to manifest their fidelity to you. Come truly to know them and truly to know yourself. Let God prevail because we’re at the point in the story now where Naomi sees after her choice to continue with a God who it seems like maybe at times could have abandoned or caused all this pain and grief for her. Now we see more clearly, at least maybe she recognized his fidelity to her the agreement for the marriage, the way that it works out and then the gift of a child and that will redeem Naomi’s literally redeem her family line. She now has posterity and the way that it works is it’s considered her posterity or her son’s posterity because through Ruth.

                                           00:55:51             So even Boaz being willing, yes, he’ll be remembered also. Obviously here we are talking about him. But essentially this is the amazing gift too in verse 13. “So Boaz took Ruth and she was his wife and he went in unto her and the Lord gave her conception and she bare a son. And the women said unto Naomi, blessed be the Lord.” So even for Ruth, they say to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel, and he shall be unto the restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age for thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons hath born him.” To me, that is a statement of a God who manifested his fidelity to her over the years.

John Bytheway:               00:56:45             A restorer and a nourisher. Better than seven sons. A fullness of sons.

Hank Smith:                      00:56:54             Naomi finds out and maybe she recognized it all along, but Jehovah had never left her. Ruth was the manifestation of hesed for Naomi. This is a beautiful story.

John Bytheway:               00:57:08             Then you just see this nod to the future. A son born to Naomi, they called his name Obed. He’s the father of Jesse, the father of David. You’re like, whoa, whoa. Here comes the royal, the kingly line.

Hank Smith:                      00:57:24             I don’t know if this was intended by the authors, but as we read Judges last week, that it was really just a dumpster fire awful, just a terrible time for Israel. You might think, oh, the Lord has given up on them. But I love that this story started with in the time of the Judges. So Jehovah’s still at work, even though the society is unraveling, he’s at work here with this family.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           00:57:49             With even the whole concept of him being a goel or a redeemer, but I spent so many years wanting and desiring marriage. I’ve thought a lot about my covenants with the Savior. 15 years ago probably somewhere in there, I had this prompting to start doing sealings every month. At first, I was kind of ticked about it. I literally was like, Heavenly father, are you kidding? Do you know how mean that is? You want me to go typically with couples, go and join a group and listen to all the promises. I’ll go where you want me to go because I know you and I know that you only ask that which is best for me. I do to my core know that God who would never, ever, ever ask anything of me that wasn’t the best for me. Now it’s not comfortable and it’s not pain free, but it’s the best.

                                           00:58:46             So I started. So I’ve studied and I’ve thought so much about, for lack of a better way of saying it, I would call the redemption of marriage. Number one, it doesn’t even ever happen, you don’t have an altar without a savior. You don’t have an opportunity to enter into eternal covenants without a savior. Every time anyone kneels at that altar, whether it be for a child to parent or a husband to wife, I see him at the center of the ordinance and at the center of a covenant and of a reality of that promise. But I’ve thought about too how my role, my eternal role as wife and mother. You know, I was smiling and introductions are so weird. Sometimes you sit and I’m like, you know what? Just tell people I love the Savior. We don’t need no stinking bio. Because those roles and those opportunities I had, they’re not eternal.

                                           00:59:43             What matters to me and what God has told me is that eternally wife and mother. I know for a lot of women and I fault no one who has pain around this because I also have a lot of pain around this of waiting upon the Lord in faith for this and yet I have had more than one witness that it is an eternal role and every blessing will be mine. Participating in sealings at least once a month for the last 15, 16, I’m probably closer to 20 years now if I’m honest about it, has been one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me. It has been a space where he has manifested and revealed himself and his nature and his character continually. And I have friends who can’t or won’t or don’t want to for now and I don’t blame them. Somebody says, if I say you want to go do sealings, no, I’m like, great, I’m going to go, let me know when you’re ready.

                                           01:00:40             Because of a variety of reasons, those words can sometimes hurt. They’ve done both for me. In the same breath, I don’t know how to explain it. They’ve been so painful and so hopeful. In the same day. As tears of joy are going down the right side and tears of pain are rolling down the left side. I literally have experienced the mixture of emotion kneeling at the altar and I see a redemptive God and deep gratitude for that ask of him. Now, I don’t do it because I’m supposed to keep a quota. I do it because I just am thrilled to get to that altar as often as I can. If I can’t get married, I might as well do it for somebody else. That’s sometimes my philosophy too. I’m like, I’m going to go marry other people today.

Hank Smith:                      01:01:28             I like that. Tears of pain on one side, tears of joy in the other. It’s a lot like Naomi saying, bitter and sweet.

John Bytheway:               01:01:34             Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. The idea of a marriage being a redemption in here is really fascinating, isn’t it? That’s what you were getting to, right, Hank? Ruth marrying Boaz and Jehovah marrying the church. There’s so much of that, Jehovah being the bridegroom that how could there not be eternal marriage when that is the metaphor that’s throughout the scriptures all over the place?

Hank Smith:                      01:02:00             I see Boaz as the Savior saying, don’t go to any other field. I will protect you. She falls on her face. Why have I found grace in thine eyes? She falls at his feet saying, I am willing to be yours. This would be a good little thought exercise maybe for a seminary class to maybe look at some of the aspects of this story and see Jehovah and Israel.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           01:02:26             In the Book of Mormon it says, you can have faith, hope, and charity, but essentially at the end of the day, beyond that, you’ve got to be meek and lowly of heart. Elder Bednar gave a talk on being meek and lowly of heart. He says, “The meekness is a defining attribute of the Redeemer and is distinguished by righteous responsiveness.” We see that in Ruth. “Willing submissiveness,” we see that in Ruth “and strong self-restraint.” We see that in Ruth. Sometimes in scripture we talk often about humility, which I do love very much humility, but they’re not the same quality. They’re sister attributes. One thing of recognizing to his language, meekness is strong, not weak. It’s active, not passive. I mean, again, just thinking of all the things we’ve seen in Ruth. Courageous, not timid, restrained, not excessive, modest, not self-aggrandizing. I always love that word. Gracious, not brash.

                                           01:03:28             A meek person is not easily provoked, we’re also going to see that in Hannah, pretentious or overbearing and readily acknowledges the accomplishments of others. This particular phrase changed me a couple years ago when he gave this talk. He said, whereas humility generally denotes dependence upon God and the constant need for his guidance and support. A distinguishing characteristic of meekness is a particular spiritual receptivity to learning both from the Holy Ghost. Okay. Yeah, good. We’re good there. And from people who may seem less capable, experienced or educated, who may not hold important positions or who otherwise may not appear to have much to contribute. Sometimes in our culture, both church as well as just in our world, we decide that people who are famous or well educated are the ones who have something to teach us. I love the concept of learning from people who … And if you ever deem somebody in your own mind as less than you in any way, shape, or form, then I hope your next thought is, so what can they teach me?

                                           01:04:42             So if you make that judgment in the first place, I hope it is followed up with the meekness position of saying, wow, you’re going to have experiences of things that I’m never going to have. What can you teach me? I remember particularly I was working downtown at the time that this talk was given and I thought about all the people that I passed in a day, some begging for money, others in jobs that caused them to live paycheck to paycheck when I wasn’t and then just a variety of life circumstance. I made it a goal. I was going to stop and talk to them and learn something every time. So I started that as my focus. So whether it be if you work at a gas station, if you pass on the street, I’ve done my best we’re safe. I’ll say that sometimes I recognize it’s not always a safe practice, but in everywhere I can, it doesn’t matter if I’m in line by Walmart, I’ll usually strike up a conversation.

                                           01:05:36             My family sometimes jokes about me being kind of that annoying person on an airplane, because I’ll talk and tell you want to put your AirPods in. I’ll give you that option. “Hey, just so you know, I’m a chatter. So if you don’t want to, just tell me, you can put your AirPods in. But if you don’t, then let’s have a conversation because I want to learn from people and I’m striving to develop meekness. I love, again, that we see this demonstrated in Ruth’s character. It doesn’t seem like she’s trying to develop meekness. She is just meek and the Savior is meek and I am not by nature. I am praying for it and I am seeking to develop it so that I do really, truly in my mind, believe that I need every one of God’s children to make me better and to make me more like him and therefore I think Zion is built up of a people who don’t rank themselves as the ones helping the poor.

                                           01:06:33             They see themselves as helping the poor and as the poor who are being helped. If we’re all honest, the humility and the meekness that is required to believe that I am no better because I have education, because I have a bed to sleep in, that I really am not. I’m grateful for those things, but it doesn’t make me better than anyone that I have those things. We learn that so beautifully from technically a refugee. In the scriptures, she is a model to me of a Christlike attribute that I have been trying to develop for years.

John Bytheway:               01:07:13             Where would widows who have to glean to get their food, where would they rank in society? and what are we learning from them, as you said, Lori.

Hank Smith:                      01:07:24             It’s poetic. Don’t overlook anyone.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           01:07:27             Kids, elderly, have the meekness to pause and say, you have experiences that I will never have. I think sometimes we long for the experience that more famous or more wealthy people have. We see what they have and we end up in this world of lack and I have found the quickest way to be grateful for the blessings that I have is to learn and speak with everybody and I love his children and I need them.

Hank Smith:                      01:07:57             Lori, as we started today, there’s a number of people we’re going to talk about, obviously, but you said we’re going to talk about Ruth and we’ve done that. And then you said you really wanted to talk about Hannah. John and I are excited to know why.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           01:08:12             Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for asking. And hopefully you’ll be glad you did. A few years back, I was asked to do a lesson on Hannah with a group of teachers. At the time, I’m like, I really don’t know anything about her, to be honest, other than like I knew she was Samuel’s mother and all that kind of stuff. One of the gifts that maybe a lot of you can relate with is you love when you’re asked to teach because it forces you to study. You don’t always love when you’re asked to teach. I do, but I know many of you, like, this is not your jam, but you do love the outcome of speaking or teaching and that you paid a price. That was my experience with Hannah. One of the things that helps me a lot in scripture is to pause and to say, okay, if Hannah were here, because Hannah and Ruth and Naomi, somebody else is telling us their story.

                                           01:09:03             I got to be honest, when somebody else speaks for me, sometimes like, oh, you didn’t get it right. Or like, hold on. I want to jump in and insert some really important details in my mind. Then I had this thought that maybe I would shift the way that I read the story to say, if Hannah were here telling me her story, what would she want me to know? The first time that I went into these chapters with that lens changed what I saw and what I understood about her and her character and her nature. For example, starting in verse one, there’s a man named Elkanah and then it’s verse two, he had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah. The name of the other was Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. What would she want me to know? From my own experience, I want children because I want children.

                                           01:09:57             It isn’t about a status thing. I don’t know that I would assume for Hannah that it’s only about that, that Peninnah has them and she doesn’t, or that it makes the difference on how she’s seen in society. From her character and her love for God, I think she wants to be a mom. So when I read this in verse two, I’m like, I resonate with that. I want children. And then verse three, “This man,” meaning Elkanah, “went up out of the city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh.” Shiloh is where the tabernacle is. Essentially, it’s their way of attending the temple, if you will. I think Hannah would say to me, hey, Lori, I married a really good man who loves me very much. If you go to verse five, he offers sacrifices and then he gives portions to all of his children and his wives.

                                           01:11:00             So in verse four, it tells us that he gave Peninnah his wife and her sons and daughters portions of the sacrifice and then verse five. But unto Hannah, he gave a worthy portion for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had shut up her womb. I love that this evidence from him that he loves her and he wants her to know that he loves her and that he doesn’t love her conditioned on her ability to give him children, her ability to give posterity, which again, matters so much even to men at that day as well. It’s all across the board, but that’s not why he adores Hannah. Because you read the story about Hannah, you can find a million reasons why he adores Hannah. It makes sense. I adore her also.

Hank Smith:                      01:11:44             Coming up in part two of this episode.

Sis. Lori Newbold:           01:11:47             Sometimes I’d give the parent, I’d say, listen, you have an assignment to have a full conversation with a child without bringing that one thing up, not even one time. And they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t do it. A lot of them of their own admittance. And then I would work with them to come back and say, okay, let’s figure out how to do this so the relationship could start to heal.