You have heard the classic definition of mixed emotions: watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Rolls Royce. One preacher exhorted his congregation at offering time to "give as if you're giving to send your mother-in-law back home." It is an old problem. Even in ancient Rome, the writer, Juvenal, said, "Domestic concord is impossible as long as the mother-in-law lives." Well, none of that is really fair. There are lots of genuinely terrific mothers-in-law.

The mother-in-law who has our attention in today's text is Naomi. Of course, she was a mother too (you do not get to be one without first being the other). She was probably a good mother, but we do not know much about that. She was a super mother-in-law, we do know about that.

You remember the story. Times were hard.…