So many women ask themselves and others whether it’s really possible to live the life of the Virtuous Woman we read about in Proverbs 31.
Interestingly, most of their conversations are around keeping the home while holding down a full time job. Housekeeping includes – but is not limited to – running errands, keeping the home clean and tidy, raising children and cooking healthy dinners!
Why the exclamation mark? The Virtuous Woman represents much more than all of this!
Now you’re saying, Trish I couldn’t possibly do any more than I’m doing now… But I just want you to hear me out…
“She didn’t do it all by herself!”
This is one omission that answers to the “can I be like her” questions tend to miss out. I read and hear women talk about the “joy” of being an excellent housekeeper which, I don’t have a problem with if you can manage it and it makes you happy. The truth is, most women are not happy and we struggle to fit it all in and then feel a failure when we can’t comply.
The Proverbs 31 woman “rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants.” (verse 15 NKJV).
We need to remove the “filters of society” so we can see what is before our very eyes. For too long, we’ve let society dictate the meaning of keeper of the home to such a great extent that we’re missing the lessons God wanted us to learn from this particular passage of scripture.
God would never set us up to fail and if so many women feel a failure because of their inability to be an excellent housekeeper – all whilst working full time, or running a business or ministry or both – something must be wrong… with the way WE see and do things.
I believe there is a lot to learn from this one “priceless” woman so I will continue this thread tomorrow and beyond. I’ll expand on the meaning of “keeper of the home” from Proverbs 31 as well as my own personal experience and I also want to outline the virtues of the Proverbs 31 Woman – from a man’s perspective. This perspective has become my personal favourite and I’m grateful to the man who wrote it!
Blessings until tomorrow,
