I love to create things. I’m a big crafter and I’ve tried many crafts. Proverbs 31 talks about a woman who makes fabric and clothing. She starts with selecting the raw materials and finishes it well enough to sell what she doesn’t need.
She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.
Proverbs 31:13 NIV
This verse comes after talking about how she only brings good to her husband and starts the list of her accomplishments.
She starts her project by carefully picking the best materials for it. It takes an understanding of her craft to be able to tell good materials from bad ones. She needs experience and the ability to plan ahead to pick her materials. She needs to know before starting the fabric how much she wants to make so she can buy the amount of flax needed to finish it. Nowadays we can run to the craft store if we didn’t buy enough, but then they only harvested at certain times of the year.
Once she had the flax, she had months of work ahead of her before she could sew the shirt or sell the fabric. Yet she works eagerly. I have problems committing to a project that will take hours to finish. It wears me out to work that long, yet the ideal Proverbs 31 woman is glad to work eagerly for months.
How can she work eagerly?
She knows the work will take forever, but she enjoys it. She enjoys the work and knows it will benefit her family. Even if she doesn’t love the specific task she needs to do, she knows how to make it enjoyable. Maybe she invited friends over and did her work while talking. Maybe she hummed her favorite songs or kept her hands busy while helping her children with their homework.
Mary Poppins said, “For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Find the fun, and the jobs a snap.” The ideal woman knows what needs to be done and what she needs to do to enjoy her work, do her best at it, and maintain her energy levels in order to keep going. She knows herself well enough to get all the work done that needs to be done and be happy doing it.
Modern Christian women can learn from the ideal Proverbs 31 wife by adjusting our mindset slightly. Since the work needs to get done, we might as well make it fun or at least enjoyable.
