My Unique Hymn

“In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spin­dle with her fin­gers. She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. When it snows, she has no fear for her house­hold; for all of them are clothed in scarlet.”

~Proverbs 31: 19 — 21~

“For­get it. I’ll par­tic­i­pate next week. I have absolutely noth­ing to say in response to those verses.”

That’s what I said to myself the first time I read the verses that Nina selected for this week’s In other Words writ­ing exer­cise. That quote sounded to me as though it were addressed to a full-time home­maker. And that’s not what I am. That’s not who I am.

Yes, I have a home. Yes, I have a fam­ily. But I am a pro­fes­sional woman. I spend my days away from my home and fam­ily earn­ing our daily bread.

I know how to sew, but I have nei­ther the time nor patience. I know how to cook, but most days I don’t because I only enjoy cook­ing when I can do so leisurely, lin­ger­ing over the details to enter­tain friends and fam­ily. I have dab­bled with var­i­ous crafts over the years. For instance, I was a pro­lific needle­point and counted cross stitch “artist.” I even won a cou­ple of blue rib­bons. But I have been “crafty” for a long time now.

Over the years, I have donated count­less hours and immea­sur­able energy to var­i­ous groups and orga­ni­za­tions, espe­cially the church.

Still, I read that quote and deemed myself entirely inad­e­quate to write about it. I felt like a failure.

I’m very good at grasp­ing a lot of things with my fin­gers — the mouse attached to my com­puter, my Black­berry, my mem­ory stick (“thumb drive”), the steer­ing wheel of my car, the cor­ner of my credit card as I pull it out of my wal­let, the cor­ner of the twenty dol­lar bill I pull out and hand it to my kid for “lunch money,” the cor­ner of the page in my plan­ner upon which I have scrawled a gro­cery list that I pass on to my hus­band, the cor­ner of the checks I just wrote and tear away for the gar­dener, clean­ing lady, plumber, air con­di­tioner repair per­son, garage door repair per­son, win­dow replace­ment spe­cial­ist, et al.

But a spin­dle? I’ve never grasped a spin­dle. In fact, when I hear that word, I think of Sleep­ing Beauty, my favorite Dis­ney movie. Remem­ber Maleficent?

I closed the browser win­dow and went about doing the things I must do each day. And you know what hap­pened next, don’t you?

I could not get those verses out of my head.

I finally decided to read them in The Mes­sage. To my sur­prise, that trans­la­tion presents Proverbs 31:10–31 as a block of text with­out fur­ther delin­eat­ing the indi­vid­ual verses as follows:

Hymn to a Good Wife

A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than dia­monds.
Her hus­band trusts her with­out reserve, and never has rea­son to regret it.
Never spite­ful, she treats him gen­er­ously all her life long.
She shops around for the best yarns and cot­tons, and enjoys knit­ting and sewing.
She’s like a trad­ing ship that sails to far­away places and brings back exotic sur­prises. She’s up before dawn, prepar­ing break­fast for her fam­ily and orga­niz­ing her day.
She looks over a field and buys it, then, with money she’s put aside, plants a gar­den.
First thing in the morn­ing, she dresses for work, rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started. She senses the worth of her work,
is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She’s skilled in the crafts of home and hearth, dili­gent in home­mak­ing.
She’s quick to assist any­one in need, reaches out to help the poor.
She doesn’t worry about her fam­ily when it snows; their win­ter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.
She makes her own cloth­ing, and dresses in col­or­ful linens and silks.
Her hus­band is greatly respected when he delib­er­ates with the city fathers.
She designs gowns and sells them, brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.
Her clothes are well-made and ele­gant, and she always faces tomor­row with a smile.
When she speaks she has some­thing worth­while to say, and she always says it kindly.
She keeps an eye on every­one in her house­hold, and keeps them all busy and pro­duc­tive.
Her chil­dren respect and bless her;
her hus­band joins in with words of praise: “Many women have done won­der­ful things, but you’ve out­classed them all!“
Charm can mis­lead and beauty soon fades.
The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.
Give her every­thing she deserves!
Fes­toon her life with praises!

That inter­pre­ta­tion gave me hope because there are at least some aspects to which I can relate: A good wife buys a field and then plants her gar­den there. Thus, she is dis­cern­ing, a good investor and com­pe­tent man­ager. She is a hard worker. Her fam­ily is well taken care of, ready to face the win­ter — their cloth­ing is in good repair. Note that a good wife engages a seam­stress to do the mend­ing if she is a good man­ager and does not intend to com­plete the mend­ing her­self. She is well-dressed, ele­gant, elo­quent and cheer­ful, not to men­tion kind and char­i­ta­ble. We all strive to earn the respect and ado­ra­tion of our chil­dren, of course, and delight when our part­ner praises us.

Most impor­tantly, a woman is suc­cess­ful when she lives in the “Fear-of-God.” New Tes­ta­ment ver­biage has more mean­ing for me so I pre­fer to con­cep­tu­al­ize my spir­i­tual jour­ney in terms of faith­ful­ness, redemp­tion and grace.

The point is that there are as many dif­fer­ent kinds of women … as there are women. We are all unique indi­vid­u­als. Not every woman is meant to be a wife and/or mother, and not every wife and/or mother is meant to be the stay-at-home type.

I never wanted to be a stay-at-home wife or mother.  I do not feel guilt or the need to apol­o­gize for that fact. It was sim­ply not the path I felt called to walk. I have many friends who are or have been, at var­i­ous times over the years, stay-at-home nur­tur­ers and just as many col­leagues and peers who have always pur­sued career suc­cess, some to the exclu­sion of mar­riage and/or moth­er­hood.  Some, like me, chose to “have it all,” accept­ing the accom­pa­ny­ing inher­ent lim­i­ta­tions, espe­cially in terms of time management.

What­ever we choose to do with our lives, we are all recip­i­ents of uncon­di­tional love and bless­ings from our Divine Cre­ator. We are cre­ated equal and called to sup­port, encour­age, and hold each other up, not judge or belit­tle our sis­ters whose choices dif­fer from our own.  As we strug­gle to bal­ance our respon­si­bil­i­ties in our own unique man­ner while dream­ing about the future and deter­min­ing how we will attain our goals, we are all held safely in the lov­ing, com­pas­sion­ate hands of the Savior.

God didn’t set us up for an angry rejec­tion but for sal­va­tion by our Mas­ter, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that trig­gered life. Whether we’re awake with the liv­ing or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encour­ag­ing words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.

1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:9–11

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