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# Going No Contact?: Ruth and Faithful Presence
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/going-no-contact-ruth-and-faithful-presence/
- Published: 2026-10-28T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T10:59:59.000Z
- Description: Because Ruth stays, because she chooses connection and self-sacrifice over convenience and self-preservation, Naomi’s empty and bitter life becomes full once more.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Family, Culture, Jessica Lee

I first read *The Lord of the Rings* because the movie was coming out, and if I wanted to see it with my dad, I had to read the book first. Despite the roadblock that is “The Council of Elrond” (if you know, you know), I finished the book in time for opening day, and a lifelong fan was made. 

At face value, the book seems to be the story of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. And in many ways, it is. But at its core, *The Lord of the Rings* is the story of how ordinary people respond courageously to perilous circumstances in order to preserve all that is good and beautiful in their ordinary, everyday lives. And it’s about the friendships that sustain them through the grimmest moments of their quest. 

While I deeply admire the world building genius of Tolkien, what has kept me coming back to *The Lord of the Rings* time and again for 25 years is the beauty of the friendships I find in its pages. And maybe that’s because the older I get, the less I’m interested in going on grand adventures, and the more I care about the people who will be by my side when the adventure stops feeling so adventurous. 

We all want to believe that a Samwise Gamgee will stand by our side until the bitter end. But how hopeful do we feel about that being a reality? I would venture to guess, not very hopeful. 

## Convenience over Connection

A Pew Research [study](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/ST%5F2024.1.16%5Fsocial-connections%5FREPORT.pdf?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) found that 24% of responders aged 19-29 feel lonely all or most of the time. For those in my age bracket (30-49) the percentage stands at 20%. I don’t have to tell you that we are living through a loneliness epidemic. People are lonely and longing for friendship, yet it has never been easier to retreat from embodied, human connection. We can work from home, order our groceries through an app, and watch church online. Instead of meeting up with a friend, we share reels as we doom scroll in our beds at night. We’ve gained convenience, but lost connection. 

I think of a new mom who doesn’t know why her three-month old has started protesting his morning nap. Instead of calling her mom who successfully raised three kids or her friend who is on baby number four, she asks ChatGPT. She may feel like she is getting a better answer (and sometimes, maybe she is), but what she has missed is a chance for meaningful connection with another human being, the connection that only happens when we are vulnerable enough to ask someone for help. 

When we look through the microscope of our day-to-day lives, these decisions of convenience often make sense. But trust is built over time as we vulnerably offer our presence to others, and receive their presence in return. And if we always make decisions that favor convenience, we will not build the trust that leads to the kind of lasting friendship that will be a grace to us in our darkest hour. 

## Self-preservation over Self-sacrifice

A few years ago, *The New York Times* ran an [article](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/health/therapy-family-estrangement.html?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) about the growing trend of going “no-contact” with family members deemed toxic or abusive, citing the influence of TikTok therapists like [Patrick Teahan](https://www.patrickteahan.com/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com). While mainstream therapy supports reconciliation except in the most extreme situations of abuse, going no contact has become a hallmark of therapy culture (as noted [recently](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/22/magazine/sister-no-contact-parents-ethics.html?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) by Kwame Anthony Appiah). 

I think of the young women I mentor who are flooded with reels, encouraging them that the best way to deal with the strained relationship with their mom is to put up higher boundaries that limit contact, or to cut off contact altogether. Even if they don’t take these drastic measures, they cannot help being influenced by the ideas, and neither can we. We are steeped in a therapy culture that talks a lot more about self-care than self-sacrifice, and we would be naive if we didn’t acknowledge the formative influence it has on us. And so, when relationships (whether with a parent, sibling, or friend) get hard, as they inevitably will, our first impulse is often toward self-preservation (putting up higher boundaries) and not self-sacrificial presence and faithfulness. 

In a world that values convenience over connection and talks more about self-care than self-sacrifice, how are Christians called to engage?

I believe we can find a model in Ruth. 

# A Model for Faithful Presence

In the opening chapter of the book bearing her name, Ruth’s husband of ten years dies. Now, childless and widowed, her best hope is to return to her father’s house where she will be provided for, and maybe even marry again. She has proven to be a faithful and loving daughter-in-law to Naomi, but now that her husband is dead, she is free to return home. And Naomi, knowing Ruth has no future with her, urges her to make this choice. But Ruth, choosing to stay with Naomi when it would be much easier to go, gives her famous response:

> Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you. (Ruth 1:16-17 ESV) 

In staying with Naomi, Ruth compromises any chance she has of a secure future. Will Naomi’s people and God accept her? And if they do, would a man marry a widow who is attached to another widow? Ruth has no idea. 

So, why should we follow Ruth’s example to stay when it’s easier to go? 

First, humans were made to live in relationships with one another, and we lose something fundamental about what it is to be human when we forgo meaningful connection for convenience. And we see evidence of this in the lonely people all around us.

Secondly, disciples of Jesus are called to follow Jesus in his death and resurrection–to die to self and live for him. As Jesus hung on the cross, those who passed by taunted him to “come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40). But despite their taunts, Jesus stayed. And because he stayed, we can choose self-sacrificial faithfulness over self-preservation. 

But there is one more reason that I want to highlight, one that can be drawn directly from the model of faithfulness found in Ruth. When Ruth makes the decision to stay with Naomi, she has no idea how things will turn out for her. But we do. Ruth will marry Boaz, Naomi’s redeemer, and the story will end with Naomi bouncing a baby on her knee. God uses Ruth and her faithful love to be the providential means of Naomi’s redemption. Because Ruth stays, because she chooses connection and self-sacrifice over convenience and self-preservation, Naomi’s empty and bitter life becomes full once more. 

So, why should we stay when it would be easier to go? Because like Ruth and Naomi, God often uses the relationships in our lives as the providential means of his redemptive purposes.

And so, as Christians, our first impulse should not be to put up higher boundaries or to look for the exit. While there are times when limiting contact with someone may be necessary, especially in situations of abuse, those decisions should be informed by much prayer and the wise counsel of those who know us (and our proclivities) well. Rather, like Ruth, our first impulse should be to stay, believing that as we stay, God will do his redemptive work in and through us. 

It took Tolkien 17 years to write *The Lord of the Rings*, and in many ways, it was his close friendship with C. S. Lewis that strengthened him to keep going. But sadly, by the time Tolkien published the first installment of *The Lord of the Rings* in 1954, he and Lewis had drifted apart. In *The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien*, there is a draft of a letter to his son, Michael, written in 1963\. He says:

I am sorry that I have not answered your letters sooner; but Jack Lewis’s death on the 22nd has preoccupied me. It is also involving me in some correspondence, as many people still regard me as one of his intimates. Alas! that ceased to be so some ten years ago.

For the man who wrote one of the greatest epics about faithful and loyal friendship, his lived experience fell far short.

What hope can there be for us? 

I’d love to end by saying, be like Ruth. Stay in relationships when they are inconvenient and require incredible self-sacrifice, because if you do, you will experience the kind of redemption that she did. 

But sometimes, you stay faithful in a marriage and your spouse never changes. 

Or you keep showing up for a friend who is nowhere to be found on the day of your crisis.

Or you stick it out at a church only to wonder ten years later if you should have left sooner. 

Other times, you experience magic. 

Our experience in relationships will always be imperfect. We will get hurt. We will experience betrayal, and we will betray. Even as I write, my ghosts haunt me: friends I’ve lost touch with; pastors I don’t see anymore; loved ones I haven’t spoken to in months. And the temptation is often to move on and put up boundaries, to choose convenience and self-preservation. But when we choose to stay, we give ourselves the opportunity to experience glimpses and foretastes of heaven that we would otherwise only get in fairytales and myths like *The Lord of the Rings*. 

So stay when it would be easier to go. Choose connection and self-sacrifice over convenience and self-preservation. And as you do, the Holy Spirit will do his work of forming you into a person who hopes against hope that God is at work, both visibly and invisibly, bringing about his redemption, the restoration of his entire creation–even your relationships.