Food For Thought Only

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No recipe tonight.  We went out for dinner!  🙂  While I don’t always post exactly what we ate for dinner, I had a crazy busy day, no time for blogging recipes.  However, I started this day out re-reading sermon notes from Pastor Allen’s message last weekend.  One of the questions he posed was, Where are you in relation to God’s purposes?  I have no idea why, but the Proverbs 31 Women popped into my head.  Years ago I read this scripture for the first time and about flipped out!  If we read this detailed description of the ideal wife and mother as the point-by-point standard God expects us to live up to, we’re bound to feel over-whelmed and exhausted before we even begin! But I believe the intention of this epilogue to the book of Proverbs wasn’t to give women an impossible to-do list, but to spread out before us the many opportunities we have to use our gifts, talents, and wisdom in fulfilling and productive ways.

What I have come to learn, that has actually saved my sanity,  is that “she” is not one women!  She’s all of us — and none of us.  The commentary in my Bible says that in a time when most women were not taken very seriously apart from childbearing, the writer of this proverb dared to present a picture of a woman as a glorious, vibrant, competent, and intelligent creation of God.  This imagery is as relevant today as the day he wrote it.  As we put this noble women’s character in today’s world, we recognize her in ourselves and our sisters!

So who wrote it in the first place?  This was an intense word given to King Lemuel by his MOTHER! (Prov 31:1). This God-breathed advice comes to the hearts of women straight from the heart of another woman. God knew and understood the need for women to influence one another; He created His daughters to be this way. Bottom line – He knew that while males can definately have a spiritual influence on us, only godly women can model how to be godly women.

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”  Proverbs 31:30

She will be remembered –long after she is gone — not as a woman who made great bread, beautifully knit a sweater, or successfully balanced a budget — but as a woman who sought the Lord first of all. When it is all said and done, that is the woman I want to be.

Blessings to you, my friend and sister.

She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax,
And willingly works with her hands.
She is like the merchant ships,
She brings her food from afar.

She also rises while it is yet night,
And provides food for her household,
And a portion for her maidservants.
She considers a field and buys it;
From her profits she plants a vineyard.

She girds herself with strength,
And strengthens her arms.
She perceives that her merchandise is good,
And her lamp does not go out by night.

She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
And her hand holds the spindle.
She extends her hand to the poor,
Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.

She is not afraid of snow for her household,
For all her household is clothed with scarlet.
She makes tapestry for herself;
Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

Her husband is known in the gates,
When he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies sashes for the merchants.

Strength and honor are her clothing;
She shall rejoice in time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
And on her tongue is the law of kindness.

She watches over the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:

“Many daughters have done well,
But you excel them all.”
Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands,
And let her own works praise her in the gates.

 

 

 

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