RU 1:20 "Don't call me Naomi, " she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."

The name Naomi actually means pleasantness, but after the loss of her husband and two sons she became a broken woman and changed her name to Mara which means bitter in Hebrew. If you have been stripped of most everything in the wilderness then you too can end up feeling just like Naomi where you become very heartbroken and bitter over how you have lost so much that you loved and valued in your life. We may love and trust God, but there are times when we just don't understand why He did certain things in our lives, and we can become very angry and full of cynicism inside.

HEB 12:15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Many people stand at the end of their wilderness and their lives seem outwardly like they are in shambles riddled with poverty, sickness, and heartbreak over what did or did not happen during their long years of letting God renovate their life and heart. We have a choice though to either get bitter or get better after everything that's happened and we must not just focus on the devastation we think we see on the outside of our lives, but rather we should focus upon all the good changes that Jesus has made on the inside of us. He has purified and healed us in ways that we are not even aware of.

RU 4:14 The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."

God later blessed Naomi through Ruth her daughter-in-law and she ended up being the great grandmother of king David. You may have had a pretty crummy deal as well all throughout your life, and then the wilderness just seemed to intensify your apparent lack of blessing, but I want to encourage you today that God has used all of this tough stuff to shape your heart and character to become more like His. You are going to see in the weeks and months ahead my friend that like Job the latter part of your life will indeed be more blessed than the first part, and God will make it all well with your soul.

JOB 42:12a The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first.