Of Genie’s Gems and Gleanings …

I said I’d come back to it, so here we go …

I wanted to call this department Genie’s Gems & Gleanings for I wanted space to write about interesting things I’d learned that might not be related to scrapbooking yet might interest you. (Perhaps I flatter myself!)

It proved to be too much of a mouthful so it was left as Genie’s Gems.

Anyway, the idea of gleaning is to gather, collect or pull together; collecting bits as you go along; and often refers to things you learn along the way in life. So you can see where I was coming from.

 

Gleaning is an old term that goes back thousands of years. It comes from a farming context and means to gather grain left behind by the harvesters (in the days when it was done by hand; I don’t expect there’s much left by today’s machinery!)

It was an instruction from God to the Israelites about three and half thousand years ago to provide for the poor and the stranger in the land. It’s mentioned in the book of Leviticus in the Bible and God tells the Israelites “When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you.” (Chapter 23 verse 22)

It also comes up in the story of Ruth. She left her family in Moab to go with Naomi, her mother-in-law, who was going home to Bethlehem. So Ruth comes into both categories as qualifying to glean: poor and a stranger.

The story goes on …

“As it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her [late] father-in-law, Elimelech.”

She gleans the grain from the fields of a wealthy man named Boaz. It’s a beautiful story of love and faithfulness. Ruth, a young widow, finds new love and moves from a place of poverty and exile, becoming a much-loved wife who has the King amongst her descendants.

Read it for yourself, it’s very short. I suggest you read it in a modern translation. If you don’t have one you can read it online at New Living Translation or you can get one for less than $10.

 

And the point of my ramblings?

Even in the midst of the disasters of life, hang on to your faith in God. He will not desert you. You will come through the other side a stronger person and able to comfort others because of the lessons learned in the school of hard knocks.

 

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