Woman To Be Cherished

Proverbs 19 speaks about two types of women.  One that no one would knowingly desire to attain to.  The other, I believe every woman would hope that she is thought in such a manner.

and a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.

Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.

Proverbs 19:13b-14

In my lifetime I hate to admit but I have done my part of being a quarrelsome wife.  To be honest with you not only am I sure my ex-husband feel the constant dripping but I began to feel it to and didn’t like it one bit!  I wasn’t happy with who I had become yet I felt stuck and unsure how to become a wife he could cherish rather than one he wanted to avoid.

I looked to anything that I thought would help; self-help books, eventually therapists yes multiple.  One was good enough for me but my marriage was crumbling around me.  When I brought my husband in he was good until they started looking at his issues then he wanted nothing to do with them.

All the rest of that is for another time.  Suffice it to say my constant dripping didn’t help things and we eventually parted ways.  This caused me to do some very deep soul searching.  One of our issues was he left God during our marriage and wanted nothing to do with anyone that had anything to do with God.  My problem is that I had misunderstood submissive and put him in front of God.

So here I was without my idol, praying to God to help get me through this mess.  I was just where God wanted me.  Back with Him.  I had lost my first love.  It is my belief that our God being a jealous God allowed my marriage to end because of my idolatry.  He wanted me back and nothing else had worked.  I was working on the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law.

In the 22 years of my singleness I have learned a lot about what it means to be a good wife.  I’ve prayed that God would make me into the Proverbs 31 woman more times than I can count.  I’ve prayed it with the thought in mind that my husband was the Lord.  This is what I’ve prayed:

I long to be Your Proverbs 31 woman.  May I be “a virtuous wife…worth far above rubies.  The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain.  She does him good and not evil all the days of her life…Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land…strength and honor are her clothing; she can laugh at days to come.  She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.  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, shall be praised.  Give the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.”

Since I have no children of my own, when it speaks of children I think of spiritual children I may have, and pray that they would see me at least a little like this woman of God.

These past 22 years I have learned many things about myself that needed changing and I have learned that men don’t respond nagging.  To say it once in a loving request that builds him up is much more effective and will keep your marriage healthy.  Always in all we do or say our job is to build him up.

Now if you are married please don’t get me wrong I’m not advocating divorce or separation.  But if your single or if everything seems to be being taken from you, it could mean that God is calling you to a closer walk with Him.

He may be pruning you to make you into the prudent woman of God that He will eventually present to your future husband or to repair your relationship.  If this is the case please be patient once a bush or tree is pruned, especially when it’s been severely pruned it takes a long time for the branches to grow to the tree the pruner had intended.  For me its been more than 22 years just to get a boyfriend.  Please notice that word I said boyfriend and not fiancé or husband.  I’m perfectly content to be where God has me right now.

You may ask after 22 years how can she be content with just a boyfriend.  Well, I can see the tree’s branches and they are almost grown out to the woman of God that the right man deserves.  Secondly, there is progress in so many areas of my life only one being, I didn’t have a boyfriend this time last year.

How might we be prudent woman that are a gift from God?  A man wants respect, so in everything we do and say we must do it from a place of respect.  A man needs building up.  All day long the world tears him down.  Our job to undo what the world has been doing. Build, build, build.  A man needs to be honored.  So no nagging!  You may disagree at such things but that is what makes a prudent woman.  She isn’t a politically correct woman.  She is called out by God to higher standards.  She is called to live a righteous life.  Not that she will always succeed but she must strive to be righteous in all she does.

You might be thinking or saying well what do I get out of all of this.  Which let me remind you, this is our calling and we shouldn’t be thinking what we get out of it.  If I had told you to respect, praise, honor and don’t nag God, would you be so quick to complain.  Just as God loves and cherishes us when we do these things so does a man.  So do it unto the Lord as an act of obedience if you must or better do it as an act of love for your man.  Trust me when I tell you from what I’ve observed of friends that live a life this way, there is no greater joy and no better way to guarantee being cherished by your man than this way.

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Is It All Bad Or Is It Good In Disguise

When the car breaks down or we lose a job or a relationship ends we look at those things as bad. The problem with that is that we are looking at them through our eyes. In our way of thinking. God tells us in Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Let’s chew on that verse for a bit. It is not only telling us that we do not think or behave like God, but that we are no where close to His ways or thoughts. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways…”, that’s quite a comparison. Mankind has no idea how high the heavens are. They appear to expand forever one universe and galaxy after another. This is how different God’s ways and thoughts are from ours, so different that our minds can’t even comprehend the vastness of them.

But He does promise to give us wisdom if we ask, so that we might understand what He chooses to reveal to us.

In God’s economy a broken down car when you don’t have the money to fix it may be an opportunity to grow in trusting God. He may surprise you with unexpected funds at just the right time or the blessing of someone to fix it out of the kindness of their heart.

In God’s economy everything works together for good. It may not come right away or in your timing but that would be your way not God’s way. Even though He may tarry He is never late.

The lost job, as unsettling as that is is an opportunity for a better job or the start of a new career or as it was with my father an opportunity to retire early even if that wasn’t his choice. Though it was not my father’s choice to retire early with health problems or mine to leave the work force and become disabled long before I was 40, God took care of my dad and continues to take care of me. It has been a walk of faith and trusting God. What I thought at first was a crisis has freed me to be a blessing to others in whatever way God shows me.

If it is a relationship that is ending believe me when I say I feel your pain. Twenty Two years ago when I was going through my divorce I thought my life was over and the world was coming to an end. I had gone from my father’s house to living with my husband. What did I know about being single? How would I ever survive? Because of my stubbornness it took me a long time to get to the point of being okay alone and learning how to rely on and trust God for my needs. He met those needs in a myriad of ways, sometimes through people, sometimes I had to truly cling to Him alone. Looking back the pain and suffering that came from the end of that relationship has matured me into the woman of God I am today. Stable in my relationship with my LORD and whole as an individual that has something to offer another individual should God choose.

So you see what seemed horrible, unthinkable, and beyond my abilities to cope turned out to be the very tool God used to draw me closer to Him and to mature me, to grow my faith and trust and reliance on Him and for that I am eternally grateful.

Would I have chosen the divorce? Never! Am I grateful for what God brought out of that situation? Yes, yes a thousand times yes!

I have even seen God use death for good. When my dad died at his celebration of life the gospel was shared and that next Sunday three new people where going to that church. One of them being my dad’s wife my stepmom whom I always called mom. She did not only start going to church but the Holy Spirit lit a fire in her soul. She would invite us kids to join her or more honestly highly encourage lovingly to come with her. It did my heart well after praying for so long for her.

I honestly don’t know anything no matter how painful it is that God can’t use it for good.

Precious ones if you are in the midst of a painful time please don’t misunderstand me and think that I take your pain lightly or flippantly. Finding the good in things varies, with my divorce I was a broken woman for a very long time. When my dad and stepmom died they had both been sick for a long time and in a great deal of pain, so I was comforted by the thought that they were no longer in pain and rejoicing with Jesus. Don’t get me wrong I have my days when I miss one or both of them terribly. Its then that I talk to God and talk to them as if they can hear me from heaven. I know God hears me and that gives me comfort and talking to my parents gives me comfort also.

When things start going wrong ask God to be able to see His ways and understand His thoughts. Then ask Him to help you to trust Him to get you through it. You’ll be a much healthier and happier person if you do. “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed sprit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22) You see if you have a cheerful heart it’s good  medicine, thus it stands to reason that you will be healthier. As one who fights depression I can attest to the fact that “a crushed spirit dries up the bones”. It feels like you’re withering away.

Joy – A Woman After God’s Own Heart