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My family and I once vacationed in Washington, DC. While on that trip, we visited the Smithsonian Institution. I loved the Museum of Modern Art within the Smithsonian. However, our youngest son, twelve at the time, hated it. For the week-long vacation, he told us how bored he was and how much he wished we had gone to an amusement park instead.

I remember looking at abstract paintings full of color and shapes. I immersed myself in those paintings, focused on the feelings they evoked in me, and marveled over the relationships of shape and color. The cultural significance of each painting intrigued me. My son, on the other hand, was unimpressed.

“I painted stuff like that in kindergarten,” he said. “Give me a piece of paper and a crayon, and I’ll make something just like that, and they can give me a million dollars and put it in a museum.”

Isn’t it funny how two people can look at the same thing yet see it differently? It’s like Ruth and Naomi. Ruth was Naomi’s daughter-in-law. Naomi’s husband and sons had died, and she was convinced her life was hopeless. She told Ruth that she should start her life over and tried to convince Ruth to leave her.

Ruth, however, in the same situation as Naomi, clings to Naomi, determined that there is still hope for them. Both women had lost their husbands and faced poverty and starvation, yet one woman saw hopelessness while the other glimpsed hope.

These women eventually found a new life in Bethlehem. Ruth married Boaz, they had children, and Naomi found joy in her old age. It’s an incredible story of how God can take our desperate, terrible situations and turn everything around.

Things may appear hopeless at the moment. You might be sick, or maybe you’ve lost a job. Perhaps you’ve lost relationships, or people are talking badly about you. Look at your situation through the eyes of hope. God can turn around every situation, even the ones that seem hopeless. Remember, nothing is impossible with God.