Happy Sunday, it's time for today's devotional from Our Daily Bread.

Our writer for today is James Banks, and the reading is titled Hard Ground and Tender Mercy.

When James was just six years old, his older brother David died tragically in an ice skating accident.

It was the day before David's 14th birthday.

In the years that followed, James tried his best to console his mother Margaret, who in her deep grief sometimes reminded herself that her elder son would never have to face the

challenges of growing up. In James Barry's fertile imagination, decades later, that same idea would

burgeon into inspiration for a much-loved children's story character who never aged, Peter Pan. Like a flower pushing

its way through pavement, good emerged even from the hard ground of unthinkable heartache.

How comforting is the thought that God, in an infinitely more creative way, is able to bring good

out of our most difficult circumstances.

A beautiful illustration of this occurs in the Old Testament story of Ruth.

Naomi lost her two sons, leaving her without means or support.

Her widow daughter-in-law, Ruth, chose to remain with Naomi to help provide for her

and to serve her God. In the end, God's provision brought them unexpected joy. Ruth remarried

and had a child, and they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. He would also be listed among the ancestors of Jesus.

God's tender mercy reaches beyond our ability to fathom and meets us in surprising places.

Keep looking. Perhaps you'll see it today.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Ruth,

chapter 4, verses 13 through 22.

So, Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.

When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive,

and she gave birth to a son.

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