Supermarket Girl – Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Ruth had gotten married when she was quite young. She was married to a guy she fell deeply in love with and committed her whole life to. Unfortunately, the guy was a nomad who had many exploits he was pursuing all at once. He could be employed here one day and the next day he would travel to another county to do some business and stay away for long periods of time. Income was not consistent and due to her husband’s happy-go-lucky attitude, Ruth was very frustrated.

After she had had her first born son, her husband developed a love for alcohol which became a nuisance. Ruth was unable to handle her husband’s behaviour as he even became abusive and started physically assaulting her regularly. For this reason, Ruth decided to separate from her husband for a while. She took her son and went to live with her parents.

Ruth’s mother understood Ruth’s plight quite well because Ruth’s experience in marriage closely resembled her mother’s. Ruth found acceptance at her parent’s home and she found herself living there for more than a year. Her father was a reformed man who knew that being saved meant being saved from your own mistakes and failures. The gospel he preached was that none of us is perfect and all of us fall short of being perfect. That does not mean however that perfection is unattainable. Perfection can be attained by those who invite God to save them and make them like Him. Those who know God know that He is infinite and therefore He is beyond any level of perfection a human being could come close to attaining. At the same time, they know that striving to be like God is the best reason for living.

It had taken Ruth’s father many years to see the light and realize how destructive alcohol was. But when he came to that realization, he never looked back. Fortunately for him, he replaced alcohol with a deep love for God’s Word and God’s guidance and direction. With God’s help, Ruth’s father was able to make amends for all the damage he had done to himself and his family. Nobody remembered his alcoholism as a bad thing. They used it to encourage themselves in believing that nobody is too far for God’s loving arms of salvation to reach him or her.

Ruth’s husband visited her and their son every now and then but the visits were few and far between. Until one day, her husband visited and told her to pack up and join him in their new home. The news came as an incredulous surprise for Ruth and when she first went to see their new home she was ecstatic. Her husband had even given up alcohol completely. She accepted his invitation to go back to him and allowed herself to believe that perhaps her husband had changed and life was going to be good after all.