LEAVE ORPAH ALONE

ADELOLA EDEMA

I had considered writing “My dear, Leaving does not make you a bad person”, but somehow it didn’t seem to be expressing my thoughts.

Christians sha… I don’t know what Orpah did to us that we have dubbed her a bad person. Do you know who Orpah is? Her story is in Ruth chapter 1, she was Naomi’s daughter-in-law. The poor lady had lost her husband and brother-in-law at a young age. If her brother-in-law had not died, as a widow in that time, she would have remarried her in-law and continued her husband’s lineage. But here she was mourning her husband, his brother, and their father. But considering that she and her fellow widowed sister-in-law, were good people, they decided to follow their mother-in-law on a long journey to where she came from.

So many in-laws in this post sha

Anyway, after Naomi begged them to leave her alone to continue her depression, Orpah turned back and went home while Ruth insisted on following Naomi.

I wonder how their lives would have been if Orpah had also insisted on following Naomi… Would any of them have married Boaz or any other guy in the family? Would Naomi have preferred Ruth over her and she would have been miserable? Would they have just taken care of Naomi till she died and they would have become too old to be wanted by any man?

For me though, Orpah has been my phobia; what if I leave someone that should be in my past and then for the rest of time, they keep using me as a reference for a bad person that left? Why hold on to the past? Why stay when I can leave?

I personally don’t think Orpah did bad by turning back, or Ruth was stupid or wise to have insisted on following Naomi. I think sometimes it is just good to close a chapter in our lives that has ended, and that was what Orpah did.

So maybe the title of this post really is “My dear, leaving does not make you a bad person”, it just means that you are closing a chapter that has finished. Your leaving might give Ruth a chance to a happy future.
In 2016, you may need to put some people or experiences in the past. As long as you think it’s the right thing to do, LEAVE. May God help us recognize when it is time to shut some doors and give us the grace to move on when we ought to.

Happy New Year!!!