The word ‘Turning point’ is very familiar to all of us.The Oxford dictionary defines this word as, ‘The time when an important change takes place’.It is something that everyone desperately longs for, for some people it is luck and for others it is the God’s appointed timing. In either way, it plays a significant role in this world we live in!

But, how do we reach the turning point? Or what actually brings that life-changing moment? This question has always bothered me ever since I was a teenager. People around us like our parents, cousins, teachers or friends or anyone that we are very closely attached to, they could all give us a humpty number of suggestions that would ultimately create a whirlwind in our minds. I thought, getting a distinction in studies would help me, then I thought, pursuing a degree in Biotechnology would help. But even securing a high distinction made me feel incomplete, a void deep within me, something was there more than these studies, degrees and appreciations, but I didn’t know what that was. Later in life in my early twenties I finally found it!

Saying all this you may be wondering whether it is so difficult to explain about ‘Turning Point’, Not at all! It’s about knowing a simple truth that brings change inside-out!

I feel it would be much easier to understand the topic by narrating a story:

This story takes place nearly 2500 years ago in Moab( part of Jordan in Israel). There lived a happy family with a Father named Elkanah, mother-Naomi and their two sons and two daughter-in-laws: Orpah and Ruth.They were sojourners in the land of Moab ( for 10 years) as they had relocated from their hometown of Bethlehem, during severe famine. When all was going well, tragedies hit the family, first with the death of the Father, followed by the two sons. Now all that there were left are the widows- Naomi, Orpah and Ruth. We could clearly imagine the situation of such a family, that too thousands of years ago, all alone, helpless and depressed.

DESOLATION

So here we are at  the first step of the Turning Point’- Desolation! Doesn’t that sound crazy? Yes, but it is an inevitable stage for our final goal. For all of us, we will have a place of desolation, where we are frustrated, irritated, filled with anger and self-pity. But the good news is that there is surely a way out!. We all have gone through that, it is just a short phase of life, where the things or people we hoped and trusted just vanished in a blink of an eye.

Coming back to the story, Naomi and her daughter-in-laws were in such a state, and Naomi urges her daughter-in-laws to go back to their Moabite homes and pleads with them to remarry and lead a peaceful life. The eldest one, Orpah, decides to leave Naomi. Just like Orpah in the story, people may leave us, the ones we loved and trusted so deeply would take their own path of journey. 

So is this the end of all things? The answer is again a BIG NO!!  

That leads us to the second and most crucial step of the challenge-: 

DECISION!

When some decide to leave us, when all the odds are against us, there would always be something left behind to hold onto, here in the story, that person was Ruth. Naomi tried her best  to convince her about the negative circumstances and the dull future ahead of their lives, but Ruth was determined to be there for Naomi no matter what. Ruth took a firm decision that she would follow Naomi and her God and would remain faithful all through her life.

So, was that step of taking a decision bringing out a Turning Point? YES! 

It is this unwavering step that paves the way to the victorious life ahead. But, that doesn’t mean that Ruth had a cakewalk to her success.It wasn’t an easy task to travel from Moab to Bethlehem with an old lady, they had to walk around 15,979 kilometres on steep terrain to reach the homeland. Not only that, it was not safe during the olden times for ladies to travel alone without a male companion. Taking all the risk Ruth decided to move on, leaving behind her kinsmen and all that she had and what she believed, because Naomi was an Israelite who worshiped one true God and Ruth was brought up in a very different culture and belief system.

DELIVERANCE

Here we are at the last and final step that completed the Turning Point, which is the deliverance!

By taking the courageous step, overcoming the odds and every humiliation and rejections, Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem safely,but again a question arises in front of them, of how they are going to survive? What would be their means of livelihood? But a door was opened in front of Ruth, as she gets a job as a gleaner in a barley field and there she get a divine protection and provision from the owner of that land.The long story now comes to end where Ruth, the widow gets married to a man named Boaz who was a rich man in the town, the owner of the field where she worked and not only that but also he was officially a redeemer to Ruth ( in the olden times there was a custom that the widow could be redeemed/remarried by one of the husband’s kinsmen). They were then blessed with a baby boy, and for Naomi, who once thought that her life would be so bitter now became a grandmother! And finally like all the childhood bedtime stories we heard, they lived happily ever after!

So the 3D’s in life aren’t that bad afterall!: Desolation, Decision and Deliverance. 

Even when the journey may seem to be tiresome, the right DECISION will turn the bitter into sweet, loneliness into harmony and hopelessness into victory! 

“And you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free”! (John 8:32).