When I got married, my cousin sent me several books by Edith Schaeffer, wife of the influential theologian, Frances. I loved those books in which she wrote about her family and gave advice. She had such lovely, old-fashioned ways of making life beautiful for her husband and children, as they served the Lord in Switzerland. They had some problems, but they were overcome through prayer and love. She advocated teamwork, beauty, and belief as ways to make a happy family. She was so creative and joyful that her children flourished as they moved on to impart the same ideals in families of their own. I vowed that I would go and do likewise.

Twelve years later, I came across the novel Portofino, by the Schaeffers’ son, Frank, which evangelical readers recognized as a slightly disguised portrait of his parents. (It is a good book, by the way, funny and touching—but I do not recommend either one of its sequels.) It made quite a stir among Christians who read it, including me. The ideal Schaeffer home wasn’t so ideal after all.

In the novel, the father has a mean and nasty temper, the mother is an odd religious fanatic, and the children try to court their parents’ favor by acting spiritual. The book really upset me, so much so that I started acting rather oddly myself—reading passages out loud to my husband, giving my Edith Schaeffer books to a local charity, researching Frank Schaeffer on the Internet. I realized I wasn’t alone in my disillusionment when I found a piece by John Fischer for CCM Magazine (July 1997), in which he wrote:

Something inside me wishes Frank hadn’t uncovered this flawed family portrait because then I could go on believing that at least someone I revered, like Francis and Edith Schaeffer, had gotten it right.

It occurs to me that this…reaction could be thought of as the big Christian lie. That is, that somebody, somewhere, got it right. Don’t we flock to speakers and singers who are up front and important because we presume they are getting it right?…Someone, somewhere has got to be getting it right so that the rest of us can almost be there.

I identified with Fischer. I loved Mrs. Schaeffer’s books because I wanted to believe that having the perfect family was a sensible goal. I now recognize that this futile hope distanced me from the difficult—but also good and beautiful—reality of family life in a sinful world. I can’t really enjoy the love of my husband, children, siblings, and parents if I am constantly expecting us all to measure up to an impossible perfection.

The story of Ruth included in this week’s lesson shows us the Bible’s realistic depiction of a family in crisis. For most of the story, the family is composed of only two women, not even related by blood—both widows and childless—forced to become scavengers to stay alive. Naomi is a bitter and disillusioned older lady, and Ruth is young and ignorant of Jewish culture. Yet members of this little family look out for each other.

Graciously, Naomi provides a guilt-free way for Ruth and Orpah to go back to their traditional families, but Ruth adamantly refuses to desert her mother-in-law. Later, Ruth saves some of the lunch she is served in the barley field to take home to Naomi, who schemes like a real mother to find the best match for "my daughter." This unconventional family is saved in the most conventional ways—by a marriage and an heir; however, the local women praise Ruth, more than Boaz, as the one God used to save Naomi, calling her "your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons.…"

Ruth and Naomi survived by clinging to each other in a cold and messy world. Sometimes this is the best that we can do with our own families. What a relief it would be to remove the pressure to be perfect from ourselves and others! But if we keep believing that other people are getting it all right and if we keep trying to mimic our view of the ideal, we will become preoccupied, then disillusioned. We will ignore the blessing of family relationships—the mantle of our kinsman-redeemer.

At the funeral for my grandmother, who died at the age of ninety-seven, the minister (my husband) paid tribute to my aunt (her daughter-in-law), comparing her to Ruth. To the casual observer, this seemed like an idyllic comparison, but the family knew better. In reality, it was a tough decade for my aunt and her family—doing Grandma’s grocery shopping (after she refused to eat the food from Meals on Wheels), buying her medicines and interpreting the dosage instructions, taking her to the doctor and the hairdresser, helping her keep her house clean, finding people to look in on her when the family went on vacation, coming over to her house every week after church to eat with her, chauffeuring her to family gatherings, listening to her.

In a model family, my grandmother would have poured out her gratitude at every opportunity, but in reality she often drove my aunt crazy. Sometimes there were tense feelings on both sides. My aunt didn’t pretend that everything was great. She vented her frustrations to us; she made jokes; she took long vacations. But she kept helping her mother-in-law.

To give my aunt a break, I sat with my grandma through her last night, nervously trying to interpret her mumbled words and summoning the nurses to help make her comfortable. It was the longest night of my life. I hated it. But as I sat there thinking of Grandma and Aunt Erika, I realized that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I wanted to do what I hated. It wasn’t perfect; it was messy, but it was true family love.

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