September 21, 2015
Proverbs 31 Woman
Sunday I visited an LDS
church and because they use a denominational hymn book rather than a traditional
hymnal all the selections were unfamiliar. When I don’t know a hymn I tend to focus
on the words and this one began, “Have I Done Any Good Today?” I laughed to myself,
it was only 9:00 am and I hadn’t even been
awake long enough to do any good! Obviously I could take lessons from the Proverbs
31 woman. “She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family
and portions for her servant girls” (Proverbs 31:15 NIV).
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Gail;
-----Maybe thirty years ago my sister gave me for Christmas a framed drawing on yellowed parchment of a very beautiful woman. I immediately attached to it and hung it on my bedroom wall calling it, from then on, my pin-up lady. Even after I married Char, my pin-up lady yet hangs on our bedroom wall to this day. Char kind of chuckles at my pin-up lady, or maybe at the idea I call her my pin-up lady. For what clothing you can make out in the picture is obviously nineteenth century. She’s got this quite long piece of fabric drawn across her lap and wrapped from her right side up over her head to drape down her back and fall off to her left where that end of the fabric joins the other. There she sits with needle in hand consumed in putting stitches into that fabric with an intentness mixed into the peaceful confidence that those stitches are important, that she knows how to put them there, and that God is pleased. I have no idea whether the artist meant anything of God in my pin-up lady, but half of art flows from the artist’s mind, the other half stirs in the beholder’s heart. And that’s what stirs in mine.
-----God is pleased with the Proverbs 31 woman. His admiration of her spills out of the text: “more precious than jewels”, “her husband trusts in her”, “she does him good”, “She is like the ships of the merchant“, “she girds her loins with strength”, “she opens her hands to the poor”, “strength and dignity are her clothing”, “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue”, “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” I looked at that picture as being of the Proverbs 31 woman, the type of woman I wanted to marry. And when I met Char, I noticed that she fit the picture.
-----We think doing good is doing big things. In fact, we think of “doing things” in terms of accomplishing a task or affecting the direction of a situation and such. We don’t think of having an emotion as doing something, or passing a thought. Somehow a moment of contemplation escapes any recognition of having accomplished something important. But even those are all important stitches in the fabric of how you are going to treat others the rest of the day. Putting the right ones in the right places amongst all the others we have carefully placed before is doing good, as I think my pin-up lady knows. From the moment you open your eyes in the morning, a flow of consciousness begins not at all too small or inconsequential for God’s interest and pleasure. To lead that flow through places of godliness and goodness and kindness is really the most important good of the day, for in that flow will be everything else coming forth from your heart through the works of your hands and speech of your lips.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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