Let It Go to God — 10-Day Women of the Bible Reading Plan
Christian Book Digest · Women of the Bible
Let It Go to God
A 10-Day Reading Plan on Surrender and Grief
Surrender is not the same as giving up. Giving up walks away. Surrender walks toward — toward the God who arrives in the wilderness, who receives the bitter without correcting it, who lets a woman pour out everything she has and calls it exactly right.
Hagar. Naomi. Ruth. Mary of Bethany. Four women who knew loss — and found that the God who permits the grief is the same God who arrives in it. This plan is not about making peace with loss. It is about making peace with the One who holds it.
This plan follows four women who knew the weight of loss — and who, each in their own way, discovered that surrender is not the end of the story. Hagar was abandoned in the wilderness and found that God saw her when no one else did. Naomi came home empty, said so without apology, and watched God restore what the years had taken. Ruth surrendered her entire world to walk into the unknown beside a grieving old woman — and found both a home and a Redeemer waiting there. Mary of Bethany sat at the feet of Jesus when everyone else was busy, and then poured out the most precious thing she owned without counting the cost.
Each day: read the passage slowly, sit with the reflection, pray the written prayer aloud, and write in your journal. Bring whatever you are carrying. This plan has room for it. Open your hands. Let it go to God.
Days 1–3 · Hagar
The God Who Sees
Hagar is the first woman in the Bible to receive a divine appearance — and she was a slave. Abandoned twice, once pregnant and once with her son dying at her feet, she discovered something that would become one of the names of God: El Roi. The God who sees. She had no status, no advocate, no voice in the story being told around her. And yet God found her specifically, spoke to her personally, and opened her eyes to the provision she could not see. These three days are for anyone who has ever felt invisible.
Hagar · When You Feel Invisible
El Roi — The God Who Sees
Genesis 16:7–13
Today’s Scripture
Genesis 16:7–13
“Now the Angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness… And He said, ‘Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?’… Then the Angel of the LORD said to her, ‘I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.’… Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, ‘Have I also here seen Him who sees me?'”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
Hagar was a slave, an Egyptian, used and then discarded. Sarai had given her to Abram as a surrogate; when Hagar conceived and Sarai felt diminished, she treated Hagar so harshly that Hagar fled into the wilderness — pregnant, alone, with nowhere to go. And then the Angel of the LORD found her. Not Abram. Not Sarai. Hagar. A slave on a road to nowhere, beside a spring in the desert. The text is specific: He “found her.” He knew exactly where she was.
Hagar gave God a name — El Roi, the God Who Sees — and she is the only person in Scripture to do so. In all the great patriarchal narratives, with all the divine visitations to Abraham and the prophets, it is Hagar — the slave, the outsider, the one with no power and no position — who names God by what she experienced of Him. You are not invisible to God. However small, however hidden, however dismissed you have been by the structures around you — He finds you. He speaks to you specifically. He knows your name. Have I also here seen Him who sees me?
Prayer
“El Roi — You are the God who sees. You see me now: what I am carrying, what has been done to me, where I am hiding. I do not need to explain it or manage it. You already know. Find me here, as You found Hagar — not when I had it together, but when I had run out of options and was sitting by a spring in the wilderness. I am here. Amen.”
Journal prompt: Hagar named God by what she experienced of Him: “You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees.” In what specific moment of your life — past or present — have you experienced God seeing you in a way no one else did? Write it as your own name for Him. And: where do you need Him to see you right now?
Hagar · When You Hit the Wall
She Sat Down and Wept
Genesis 21:14–17
Today’s Scripture
Genesis 21:14–17
“And she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba. And the water in the skin was used up, and she placed the boy under one of the shrubs. Then she went and sat down across from him a good distance away, as it were a bowshot; for she said to herself, ‘Let me not see the death of the boy.’ So she sat across from him, and lifted her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, ‘What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.'”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
The second time Hagar is in the wilderness is worse than the first. Now she has her son. The water is gone. The boy is dying. She places him under a shrub and sits down a bowshot away — far enough that she cannot watch him die. This is the limit of what a person can endure: the complete exhaustion of hope, the inability to witness what is about to happen. She wept. The text does not say she prayed. She did not have words for prayer. She only had weeping.
And God heard. Notice the tenderness of the angel’s words: “God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.” Not where he should have been. Not where he should have arrived by now. Where he was — in the shade of a shrub in the wilderness. God meets us exactly where we are, in the precise geography of our exhaustion. Hagar did not have to explain herself, perform faith she did not have, or find her way to a better position first. She wept. And that was enough for God to respond.
Prayer
“Lord, I have sat a bowshot away from my own grief because I could not bear to watch it. I have run out of water and words. I do not know how to pray this. Receive my weeping as prayer — it is the only honest thing I have right now. And meet me where I am, not where I should be. Amen.”
Journal prompt: “She sat a bowshot away because she could not watch.” Is there something in your life right now that you have been sitting a distance from — grieving, but not able to look directly at it? Write honestly about what that is. You do not have to resolve it today. Just name it. God hears the cry from where you are.
Hagar · What God Opens
Then God Opened Her Eyes
Genesis 21:18–20
Today’s Scripture
Genesis 21:18–20
“Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink. So God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. Four words — and they reframe everything. The well was already there. Hagar had not seen it. She had been sitting in the presence of provision she did not have the eyes to perceive. Sometimes the miracle is not the creation of something new — it is the opened eyes to see what is already present. She ran, filled the water skin, gave the boy a drink. The action followed the seeing. What God opens makes possible what God has already placed.
The final line of Hagar’s story is one of the most understated endings in Scripture: “So God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness.” God was with him. Hagar’s willingness to sit in her grief — not performing faith she did not have, not manufacturing hope — led to the opened eyes and the full water skin and a son who grew and flourished. Grief does not have to be productive to be held by God. It does not have to be faithful to reach Him. She only had to weep. And that was enough.
Prayer
“Lord, open my eyes to the well that is already here. I have been sitting in the presence of provision I could not see because my grief was too heavy. Open what only You can open. Show me what has been there all along. And let me rise, fill my hands, and give the ones I love a drink. Amen.”
Journal prompt: “God opened her eyes, and she saw a well that was already there.” Has God ever shown you provision — comfort, a person, a resource, a way forward — that had been present but invisible to you in your grief? Write about that moment of opened eyes. And: what might He be asking you to see right now that your own grief is obscuring?
Days 4–8 · Naomi & Ruth
Empty Hands, Open Road
Naomi came home a widow who had buried both her sons. She named herself Mara — bitter — and Scripture did not correct her. Ruth chose to walk with her into the unknown, surrendering her entire world for a grieving old woman who had nothing visible to offer. Together their story becomes one of the most complete pictures of redemption in the Old Testament: how God works in the empty spaces, in the fields of the faithful, in the hands of the willing.
Ruth · Surrender as Loyalty
Into the Unknown
Ruth 1:14–18
Today’s Scripture
Ruth 1:14–18
“Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, ‘Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ But Ruth said: ‘Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.’ When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her.”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
Ruth’s declaration to Naomi is one of the most beautiful passages in the Old Testament. It is also a radical act of surrender — not of her comfort or convenience, but of her entire world. She was a Moabite widow choosing to go with a Jewish widow back to a country that regarded Moabites with historical hostility. She had no guaranteed future, no legal protection, no established position. What she had was love for a grieving old woman who had told her twice to go back.
Her surrender was not passive — it was deliberate, specific, and comprehensive. She listed what she was letting go: her country, her people, her gods, her future. She gave all of it to the God of Naomi — a God she had never personally met, in a land she had never visited, through a relationship with a bitter woman who had nothing visible to offer her. This is what surrender as faith looks like: not a shrug or resignation, but a full-throated, eyes-open commitment to walk into the unknown with the God she had heard about from the person beside her.
Prayer
“Lord, give me the surrender of Ruth — not passive, not reluctant, but deliberate and specific. I want to name what I am letting go, one thing at a time, and give it to You the way she gave her entire world to Naomi’s God. Let my surrender be a choice, not a capitulation. Lead me, and I will follow. Amen.”
Journal prompt: Ruth’s surrender was comprehensive — she named everything she was giving up, one category at a time. Write your own Ruth declaration: name the specific things you are releasing to God today. Not in resignation, but in deliberate, eyes-open surrender. “Wherever You go, I will go” — what does that cost you personally right now?
Naomi · The Permission to Be Honest
Call Me Mara
Ruth 1:19–21
Today’s Scripture
Ruth 1:19–21
“Now it happened, when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was excited because of them; and the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’ But she said to them, ‘Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?'”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
Naomi returned to Bethlehem a widow who had buried both her sons. When the women of the city recognized her and called her by name, she did not manage their expectations or perform a recovery she had not experienced. She said: stop calling me Naomi — pleasant. Call me Mara — bitter. Because that is what I am. The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full. I came home empty.
This moment is shocking in its bluntness. Naomi does not protect God’s reputation by softening what she says. She names exactly what she believes has happened — and Scripture does not correct her in this moment. It does not defend God from her accusation. It records her grief, in all its rawness, and then continues with the story. This is the permission you have been given: to say what is actually true about your experience, without dressing it up for an audience. “Bitter” is a valid name. God is not fragile. He can hold what is true about where you are.
Prayer
“Lord, I am giving You my honest name today — not the name I perform for other people, but the one that is actually true right now. I went out full and came home empty. I am not pretending otherwise. You are not fragile and I do not need to protect You from my honesty. Receive this. Hold this. And be who You were to Naomi — the God who was working in the emptiness even before she could see it. Amen.”
Journal prompt: If you could name yourself honestly right now — not the name you carry in public, but the one that describes your actual interior state — what would that name be? Write it. Then write what you would want to say to God about how you arrived at it. Naomi said it to the women of Bethlehem. You can say it here.
Ruth · Provision in Unlikely Places
The Grace in the Gleaning
Ruth 2:2–3, 10–12
Today’s Scripture
Ruth 2:2–3, 10–12
“So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, ‘Please let me go to the field, and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor.’ And she said to her, ‘Go, my daughter.’ Then she left, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz… Then Boaz answered and said to her, ‘… The LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.'”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
Ruth went out to glean — a provision in the Mosaic law for the poor, the widow, and the stranger. She did not demand or grasp. She asked. She worked. She picked up what the reapers had left behind. And she “happened” to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz — a kinsman-redeemer of Naomi’s family, a man of standing and integrity, who noticed her, extended protection, and told his workers to leave grain in her path intentionally. The word “happened” in Hebrew carries the sense of divine arrangement. What looks like chance in Ruth’s story is the quiet sovereignty of God disposing circumstances before she arrived.
Boaz’s blessing to Ruth names exactly what surrender produces: “The LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.” She had sheltered under God’s wings — the same image the Psalms use for the sacred space of trust and safety. She worked with open hands. She gleaned rather than grasped. And the reward came from Him. Gleaning is a picture of what surrender looks like in practice: take what is given, do not grasp for what is not yours, and trust that the provision is in the field even when you cannot see it from where you are standing.
Prayer
“Lord, I want to be someone who gleans rather than grasps — who takes what is given with gratitude rather than demanding what is not mine. Let me work with open hands, trust that the field You have placed me in holds what I need, and shelter under Your wings the way Ruth did: with the full weight of my life. Amen.”
Journal prompt: “She happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz.” Write about a moment when you “happened” upon provision, a person, or an open door that — looking back — was clearly more than coincidence. What was God arranging without your knowledge? And: what field are you currently in that might contain more than you can presently see?
Naomi · Grace You Didn’t Arrange
When Something Kind Happens in the Dark
Ruth 2:18–20
Today’s Scripture
Ruth 2:18–20
“So she brought out and gave to her what she had kept back after she had been satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, ‘Where have you gleaned today? And where did you work? Blessed be the one who took notice of you.’ So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and said, ‘The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.’ Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, ‘Blessed is he of the LORD, who has not forsaken His kindness to the living and the dead!’ And Naomi said to her, ‘This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives.'”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
Something shifts in Naomi the moment Ruth brings home the ephah of barley. When she hears where Ruth gleaned — in the field of Boaz — something long-dormant wakes up in her. She says: “Blessed is he of the LORD, who has not forsaken His kindness to the living and the dead.” This is the first time since her return that Naomi speaks of God’s kindness rather than His bitterness. The provision she did not arrange, the field Ruth happened upon, the man who gave intentional orders — she reads all of it as the fingerprint of hesed: the covenant lovingkindness that persists even when we cannot see it.
The woman who named herself Mara is beginning, slowly, to see that what appeared empty sometimes contains provision she has not yet found. The bitterness has not disappeared — it will take more time and more grace. But something has started to stir. This is how grief turns: not in a single dramatic moment, but in the small kindnesses we did not arrange, arriving unexpectedly, softening what had hardened. The God who seemed absent from Naomi’s story was working in the fields of Bethlehem long before she knew to look there.
Prayer
“Lord, open my eyes to the kindness You have not forsaken — the small, unannounced mercies I did not arrange and did not deserve. Even in the season I have named bitter, You have been present in ways I have not yet recognized. Teach me to read the fingerprints of Your hesed — and let them soften what grief has hardened. Amen.”
Journal prompt: In the hardest season you have walked through, was there a kindness that arrived unexpectedly — something you did not arrange, a person who showed up, a provision you did not see coming? Write about it as evidence of hesed — covenant lovingkindness that does not forsake. What does that tell you about what God may be doing in your present emptiness?
Naomi · What Redemption Looks Like
The Restored Years
Ruth 4:13–17
Today’s Scripture
Ruth 4:13–17
“So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife… Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom, and became a nurse to him. Also the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, ‘There is a son born to Naomi.’ And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
The women of Bethlehem — the same women who watched Naomi walk back into town empty — are now naming the child born to Ruth and Boaz as “a son born to Naomi.” Naomi takes him to her bosom, holds him close, nurses him. This is a picture of extravagant, unearned restoration. She did not just receive comfort. She received a son — the son of a son she had buried — through the love of a daughter-in-law she had tried to release, through the kinsman-redeemer she had not arranged, through the quiet sovereignty of a God she had accused of afflicting her.
Naomi could not have known, when she named herself Mara, that she would hold this child. She only had to be honest, stay present, and let God do what God does in the empty spaces of those who hold on. Joel 2:25: “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” The book of Ruth is the living embodiment of that promise. Redemption did not erase the loss — it grew something new and impossibly beautiful from the soil of it. And that child, Obed, became the grandfather of David — and an ancestor of Jesus. What Naomi carried in her emptiness, God carried into history.
Prayer
“Lord, You are the God who restores the years the locust has eaten. I cannot see from here what You are growing in the soil of what I have lost. But Naomi could not see it either — she only had to hold on. Let me hold on. And let what You build from my emptiness carry something of You into the lives around me. Amen.”
Journal prompt: Naomi held Obed — the restoration of everything she had lost — and she had not been able to see it coming. Is there a loss in your past that God has since turned, redeemed, or used in a way you did not expect? Write about it as evidence of His restoring work. And: what are you inviting Him to redeem in you right now?
Days 9–10 · Mary of Bethany
Open Hands, Costly Love
Mary of Bethany appears twice in the Gospels in moments of complete surrender. The first time she sits at the feet of Jesus when everyone else is busy, choosing presence over productivity. The second time she pours out a pound of spikenard — a year’s wages — on His feet, and wipes them with her hair. Jesus defends both acts. In a plan about surrender, Mary is the final word: this is what it looks like when love outspends reason, and God calls it exactly right.
Mary of Bethany · Choosing What Cannot Be Taken
The Better Part
Luke 10:38–42
Today’s Scripture
Luke 10:40–42
“But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.’ And Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.'”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
Mary sat at Jesus’ feet while Martha served. Both women loved Jesus — Martha’s love expressed in activity and hosting, Mary’s love expressed in presence. When Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her, He gently corrected Martha’s framing — inot her service, but her anxiety — and then defended Mary’s choice with one of the most striking lines in His teaching: “She has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” The word “chosen” is deliberate. Mary was not lazy. She was practicing a form of surrender that is perhaps the most difficult of all: the surrender of productivity.
The anxiety that says I must justify my presence by what I do — Mary laid that down. She sat. She listened. She was fully present to the person in the room who mattered most. And Jesus said: this is the one thing needed. Everything else can be taken — circumstances, relationships, health, certainty, plans, the things we thought we were building. The one thing that cannot be taken is the presence cultivated at His feet. After ten days in a plan about grief and surrender, this may be the deepest truth: you do not have to do anything to be with God. You only have to sit.
Prayer
“Lord, I want to choose the better part — not because I am lazy or indifferent, but because I have finally understood that everything else can be taken and You cannot. Teach me to sit. Teach me to be present to You the way Mary was: fully, without agenda, without needing to prove my worth by what I produce. One thing is needed. Let it be You. Amen.”
Journal prompt: “One thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” What is the “one thing” in your life that cannot be taken — that has remained even through the losses you have walked through? And what is the “many things” you are worried and troubled about that may be crowding it out? Write about both.
Mary of Bethany · When Love Outspends Reason
The Alabaster Jar
John 12:1–8
Today’s Scripture
John 12:3–7
“Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, ‘Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?’ … But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial.'”
New King James Version (NKJV)
Reflection
The spikenard was worth three hundred denarii — a year’s wages. Mary broke it open and poured it on the feet of Jesus. When Judas objected, Jesus said two words: “Let her alone.” And then He named what she had done: “She has kept this for the day of My burial.” Mary may have understood something the disciples had not yet accepted — that Jesus was about to die. What looked like extravagance to the room was, in Jesus’ framing, an act of prophetic preparation: anointing the body before the burial. She alone had received what He had been saying about His death and let it move her to action.
The act itself is the final sermon on surrender. Mary gave the most valuable thing she owned — not out of obligation, not in calculation, not expecting something in return. She poured it on the One she loved, at the moment she understood was most important, and then wiped His feet with her hair in the most intimate, costly, self-giving gesture available to her. “The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.” Surrender that is full and costly changes the atmosphere of the room. It releases something that cannot be contained. What you hold back protects you. What you pour out transforms everything around you. This is the invitation of this plan and of the One who watches you hold the jar: pour it out.
Prayer
“Lord, I have been holding the jar. I know what is in it — and I know what it would cost to pour it out. I have been calculating whether the cost is too high, whether You are worth it, whether the moment is right. Mary did not calculate. She poured. Let me pour. Whatever I have been keeping back — my grief, my bitterness, my unanswered questions, my most precious thing — I am opening my hands. Let it go to You. Fill this room with the fragrance. Amen.”
The Open-Hands Prayer — Day 10
In your journal, write the name of the one thing you have been holding most tightly — the grief, the loss, the unanswered question, the precious thing you have not been able to release. Then write: “I am opening my hands. Let it go to God.” Below it, write what you believe God holds in the open hands He has extended to you. This is your alabaster jar moment.
Final journal prompt: Look back over these 10 days — Hagar in the wilderness, Naomi coming home empty, Ruth walking into the unknown, Mary pouring out everything she had. Which woman’s story held your grief most? Write her name and why. Then write what you are releasing to God today — specifically, honestly, by name. Surrender is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of what God does next.
“The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.”
John 12:3 · NKJV
What you hold back protects you.
What you pour out transforms everything around you.
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