I lost my job. I don't know how we're going to make it.

Starting over with empty hands wasn't the end of Naomi's story — it was the beginning of a provision she couldn't have arranged herself. Provision rarely looks like what we expected on the way there.

The conversation

The child: “Daddy God, I lost my job. I don't know how we're going to make it.”

God: “I saw it happen. I was there in the meeting when they told you.”

The child: “Where do I even start over?”

God: “There was a woman named Naomi who lost everything — her husband, her sons, her income, her home. She had to start completely over too.”

The child: “What did she do?”

God: “She went back to the one place she still had roots — and she went with empty hands, not knowing what would happen next.”

The child: “Did it get better?”

God: “It did. Not instantly. But provision found her in a way she never could have arranged on her own.”

God: “Going back empty-handed wasn't the end of her story. It was the very beginning of it.”

The child: “So starting over isn't the same as failing?”

God: “Starting over is just the shape provision sometimes takes. It rarely looks like what we expected.”

The child: “I'm scared of what comes next.”

God: “That's alright. You don't have to arrange it. You just have to take the next step, and let me handle what you can't see yet.”

The child: “Okay. I'll take the next step.”

God: “That's all I've ever asked of anyone who started over.”

"Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread." Ruth 1:6, KJV