It’s going to be a busy week around here, so I’ll be reposting a three-part series I wrote last summer, on my old blog. Enjoy!
I’ve had an ambiguous relationship with the Proverbs 31 Woman over the years.
When I was a baby, my Auntie Lynn gave me a plaque that hung in my room until I left for college. It was beautiful, with a puffy, padded frame covered in peach calico and rimmed with lace. Inside, my name and its meaning (fair lady) were written in elegant letters, and beneath that was a Bible verse: “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.” (Proverbs 31:26) It was one of the most treasured objects of my childhood–along with my Holly Hobbie mirror, my teddy bear, and a toss pillow my Auntie Lorrie made that had a place to hide books.
In the simple logic of a child, I thought that plaque described what I was supposed to be and do. I was named Jenny, therefore I was supposed to be a princess-ey girl who spoke with wisdom and taught people to be kind to each other. I am convinced that the plaque gave me a complex–albeit a good one, and probably exactly what my Auntie Lynn had in mind (princess-obsession aside).
It wasn’t until I was a young adult that my thoughts about Proverbs 31 started to sour. I married at 19, and had my first baby when I was not quite 21, so I was thrust into the adult world, and particularly the world of women’s Bible studies, earlier than most. I was in for a surprise.
Now, I had been used to Bible studies being–well–times when we studied the Bible. At my high school and college, groups of students would get together to read and discuss the Bible, often with the help of a slim booklet from IV Press that helped them think through what they were reading.
But this was not what I experienced in women’s Bible studies. Instead, we studied books by pastor’s wives and small celebrities, quite often having to do with the Proverbs 31 woman, and almost always offering prescriptive suggestions on how Christian women were to live in light of the handful of biblical passages that speak specifically to women. I don’t think I’m overstating it to say that many of these books were more about homemaking than holy living, more about being a wife and mother than about being a disciple of Christ. In fact, many of them didn’t seem to see any distinction.
There was nothing intrinsically wrong with most of these books, but my soul began to shrivel under the steady diet of “Better Homes and Gardens” Bible studies. The Proverbs 31 Woman was transformed from the wise instructor I understood her to be in my childhood, to a measuring stick for my homemaking skills, an airbrushed ideal of Christian womanhood.
And I didn’t measure up.
I tried. Oh, I tried. And I always failed miserably. I just wan’t a good homemaker, and no amount of nagging or affirmation could make a dent in my messy, disorganized ways. I wince reading back through my prayer journals–page after page, for years and years, of me crying out to God to make me a better homemaker. Sure, I prayed for my family and friends, but the recurring theme was my failure as a housekeeper–which seemed to imply that I was a failure as a Christian woman, a failure as a disciple.
Crushing.
Looking back from my current vantage point, I’m miffed on behalf of my young self. I was in my early twenties, hundreds of miles from my family and support systems, trying to run a house and take care of an autistic toddler. (Were his crazy behaviors due to my failure as a mother as well??? It seemed likely.) I needed a heaping dose of grace and courage, and I was being given housekeeping tips, with a Bible verse thrown in here and there to remind me that I really SHOULD be doing things the author’s way.
I didn’t need people telling me to put on fresh lipstick and a squirt of perfume a couple minutes before my husband returned home from work.
I didn’t need people equating Proverbs 31:14 (“she is like a merchant ship, bringing her food from afar”) with the need to prepare interesting dinners for my family. (Little Caesars, anyone?)
I didn’t need people telling me how I should be getting up before the rest of my family to cook breakfast, make coffee, and prepare for the day. I was up half the nights taking care of a special needs child. I needed SLEEP, for pete’s sake!
I needed Jesus.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Jesus, in Matthew 11:28-30
Jesus seemed like such a better teacher, such a better model, than the Proverbs 31 Woman. And undoubtedly, he is.
But recently I discovered that the Proverbs 31 Woman has been falsely accused.
Which leads me to Part 2 of this discussion (coming tomorrow).
“Little Caesars, anyone?”
Jen, I can have pizza four nights in a row and if someone suggests going out for pizza the fifth night I am so ready to join them. In fact, it seems like the perfect food for the family whose mom is sleep-deprived and at wit’s end, doesn’t it?
And your quote from Matthew 11 reminds me of Hudson Taylor’s application of that passage to those of us who belong to Jesus:
“To every toiling, heavy-laden sinner, Jesus says, Come to me and rest. But there are many toiling, heavy-laden believers, too. For them this same invitation is meant. Note well the words of Jesus, if you are heavy-laden with your service, and do not mistake it. It is not, Go, labor on, as perhaps you imagine. On the contrary, it is stop, turn back, Come to me and rest. Never, never did Christ send a heavy laden one to work; never, never did He send a hungry one, a weary one, a sick or sorrowing one, away on any service. For such the Bible only says, Come, come, come.”
Rest is good. (In fact, I wrote on it recently, if you want to click on my name for the link.)
Looking forward to part two tomorrow, Jen.
Tim
Tim, I’ve never heard that Hudson Taylor quote before. AMAZING. Thanks for sharing!!!
Girl, you know how I feel about this. I’m just getting ideas right now about how to address the Prov 31 passage and what Jesus would say about all that. Hope to write that Bible study (maybe next year) Proverbs 31:14 (“she is like a merchant ship, bringing her food from afar”) and the other passages in there similar to it, sounds a lot more like entrepreneurship if you ask me. I mean what would you call all of that if a man were doing it?
Yes, I do know how you feel about it, and eagerly await that Bible study!
I think “entrepreneurship” is an apt description, well-applied to either gender.
Can’t wait for part 2! Thank you for writing from your life and your experiences. It definitly is refreshing and I think we all need to hear what we need is authentic community in relationship with others and with Jesus! Over the past 4 months, I have for the first time found a place with women through a bible/book study where I felt that we were all being real in a church setting. I have that with friends, but this is the first time in a group at church. I have been in many of these, but not one where we all were really sharing our burdens and not giving the “easy” answers. I feel very fortunate and I prayed for 2 years that God would lead me to a group like this and he did! What you know! Thanks again and I can’t wait to read tomorrow!
I am so glad that you found a group of women like that, Kathy! What a HUGE blessing that is!!!
Most excellent my friend. I am going to read part two and then post! I post what I like!
Thanks Marlena! I think part three will be right up your alley too.
You and Natasha, totally!
So, so good. Can’t wait for part 2. And I lost track of how many awards you just won! Congratulations, sister!
Thanks, Rachel!!!
I just posted part 3 now, so they’re all up there.
Jenny, I got onto your site through a mutual friend…another Jen … Grant Funck. I use to view Proverbs 31 as demeaning to women and forcing them (you) into a box which few people of either sex could fit. Then a began to view Prov. 31 a bit differently. This was not a woman primarily baking cookies for the fund raiser at the local Christian school. This woman was an entrepreneur. She started things. She delegated things. She oversaw things. She never saw that everything was on her shoulders. Proverbs 31 shows a woman who refused to be pushed into a box and was honored for it. How interesting that so often Women’s Bible studies actually miss this central point and so instead of freeing women they constrain them.
It IS ironic that so many of us seem to miss the point of Proverbs 31, isn’t it? Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Steve!