Training Proverbs 31 Daughters

This is a devotion I am giving this Saturday at our Mother~Daughter Tea.

What do you think? (be nice)

Training Proverbs 31 Daughters

¹⁰ Who^[b] can find a virtuous^[c] wife?
      For her worth is far above rubies.
       ¹¹ The heart of her husband safely trusts her;
      So he will have no lack of gain.
       ¹² She does him good and not evil
      All the days of her life.
       ¹³ She seeks wool and flax,
      And willingly works with her hands.
       ¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,
      She brings her food from afar.
       ¹⁵ She also rises while it is yet night,
      And provides food for her household,
      And a portion for her maidservants.
       ¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;
      From her profits she plants a vineyard.
       ¹⁷ She girds herself with strength,
      And strengthens her arms.
       ¹⁸ She perceives that her merchandise is good,
      And her lamp does not go out by night.
       ¹⁹ She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
      And her hand holds the spindle.
       ²⁰ She extends her hand to the poor,
      Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.
       ²¹ She is not afraid of snow for her household,
      For all her household is clothed with scarlet.
       ²² She makes tapestry for herself;
      Her clothing is fine linen and purple.
       ²³ Her husband is known in the gates,
      When he sits among the elders of the land.
       ²⁴ She makes linen garments and sells them,
      And supplies sashes for the merchants.
       ²⁵ Strength and honor are her clothing;
      She shall rejoice in time to come.
       ²⁶ She opens her mouth with wisdom,
      And on her tongue is the law of kindness.
       ²⁷ She watches over the ways of her household,
      And does not eat the bread of idleness.
       ²⁸ Her children rise up and call her blessed;
      Her husband also, and he praises her:
       ²⁹ “ Many daughters have done well,
      But you excel them all.”
       ³⁰ Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
      But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
       ³¹ Give her of the fruit of her hands,
      And let her own works praise her in the gates.

Held up as the ‘perfect’ Christian woman this passage in the Bible is often seen as an unattainable goal. An unreachable, impossible example. Just one more thing to make us feel inadequate.

But it is not meant this way. It is meant as encouragement. It is meant to lift us up & guide us. She is a role model for us.

One thing to keep in mind; this is not a single day in her life. This is a lifetime. This is how she lived & what she accomplished throughout her life as a wife & mother.

Life has seasons. Different seasons require different actions. When we have small children it is often difficult to do much else besides care for those small children. That is a season.

As our families grow our older children help care for our younger children; our children grow & move on to homes of their own. More seasons.

Each of these seasons gives us opportunities to put in place different aspects of the Prov 31 woman.

A big hurdle for many of us in becoming this woman is that we just weren’t taught how.

We weren’t taught how to be a wife. We weren’t taught how to keep a house; how to raise children. How to be that Prov 31 woman.

I know I wasn’t.

My own mother didn’t teach me much about housekeeping. Nothing about cooking. I didn’t know one had to scrub toilets & bathtubs. Really? Who knew? I have a friend in Klamath Falls; she has 7 children & continues to struggle with how to keep a house. She was never taught how to clean or organize. And being a more relaxed, not so compulsive person, she finds that her house quickly gets out of control. I am much more OCD about ‘neatness’ ~ my house usually ‘looks tidy’~ but I still struggle with keeping up with the cleaning; actually scrubbing the shower or mopping the floor & whatever you do don’t look at the top of my fridge. I’m too short to see it so it just isn’t there~ right?

Many of us have mothers or grandmothers who are amazing cooks or seamstresses & yet we may not be able to boil water or sew a straight seam. Somewhere in the last 30 years or so there has been a disconnect between mothers & daughters. We have failed to train our daughters in the ways of the Prov 31 woman.

In my husbands family we have seen this illustrated in 3 generations. Grandma is a wonderful cook & still keeps a beautiful home. My MIL can cook & enjoys working in her home but working outside of the home tires her & she mostly does NOT. As a result my SIL CANNOT. She feels lost when it comes to cooking & keeping her home. Somewhere those skills were lost & not passed on.

I see this in so many families these days. I have spoken to young mothers (& some not so young) who struggle with making meals & housekeeping & child training. And not in a “how do I fit in all in?” time crunch kind of way but because they were never taught how to do those things. Many people in this age come from broken homes, they had working mothers & they just had no example. They find themselves married & raising children & they have no idea how.

Many times I see parents who are very skilled in different areas but because it is ‘easier to do it myself’ they never pass on their skills to their children. As a result, it isn’t just women who are lacking the skills necessary to run a home. Many young men today have no clue how to use power tools, make simple repairs or build simple projects. But today is not about the young men. Today is about our daughters.

It is my hope to encourage all of us to take the time to train our daughters in being Prov 31 women. To give them the skills they need to be wives & mothers. If you are one yourself who wasn’t trained it is your chance to learn together with your daughters. If your children are grown maybe you can mentor a young woman in your church or work with your grandchildren.

I would encourage you to take the time to teach your daughters’ life skills~ laundry, cooking, cleaning. When I got married I could make about 6 dinners. And 2 of them came from a can. I could make: spaghetti, lasagna, meat & potato pie & a casserole. I would just rotate those same meals in & out. It didn’t take long for my husband to grow weary of them. To save my own daughter from this I have begun to teach her to cook. She is learning to follow recipes, to use different kitchen utensils, to set the table & warm the plates & have everything ready when we sit down to the table. She can & does get breakfast on the table many mornings. She can clean everything up & put it away as well. I hope to continue enlarging her repertoire & building her confidence so that when she has her own home she will not feel lost in that department.

We work on how to clean the house, how to keep it nice, what sort of things need to be done daily or weekly. Just last week we had friends drop by with no warning & while my house was far from the pristine magazine cover loveliness I long for~ it was perfectly presentable & I didn’t have to be embarrassed to welcome them into our home. This is something I want to pass on to my daughter~ the gift of hospitality. The ability to be confident in her housekeeping enough to have folks just ‘drop by.”

Learning to keep house & having the ability to cook are important & every child~ boy or girl~ should  possess these talents. But there is more to Prov 31 than just housekeeping…

Our daughters need to know how to be good wives. This was something my mama definitely did NOT teach me. I was an argumentative, bossy, preachy woman. My poor husband…

I hope to be able to teach my daughter to honor her husband, to respect him, to trust him & to not hinder him from being the spiritual leader of their home.

Young women today need to know that being an honoring submissive wife does not mean being a spineless doormat. It takes more courage & strength to be a good wife then to be bad one. It sometimes requires us to step way out of our comfort zones to follow the paths our husbands chose for our families. Just look at me…

I did not understand when I married that if I treated my husband like my king he would love me like his queen. I desire strongly to teach that truth to my daughter & every young lady I meet. Tearing down & complaining & arguing to do not build a man up do not give him the desire to lead his family. Young women need to learn to love & encourage their husbands. To put the husband/wife relationship ahead of friendships & work & play & even ahead of family. They need to know that when they marry their husband needs to become the most important person in their lives~ right behind God.

Young ladies of today also need to be taught the importance of being just that: a lady. In today’s world how to be a lady is quickly being forgotten. Girls are not taught how to behave in a ladylike manner. They are loud & boisterous. Immodest & brash. It is a sad thing. I don’t mean to say that all girls should be inside stitching embroidery & sipping tea. But they should have the chance to learn those skills! They should be able to walk like a lady, speak like a lady, sit like a lady, laugh like a lady~ in a dignified refined manner that is pleasing to the eye & the ear. They should be equipped with language skills to express themselves without shouting, without swearing, without making a spectacle of themselves.

These are all qualities that used to be taught to girls but that have been for the most part lost by today’s generations. It is my hope to encourage you to take the time to encourage these traits in your daughters. Take the time to teach them how to be a lady. To encourage them to be modest~ both in dress & in action.

I don’t mean to sound as though I have all the answers~ I don’t. I struggle with these issues daily with my own daughter. I pray that the Lord would help & guide me to bring her up to have the skills she needs & the desire to conduct herself as a woman of God. I struggle daily with these issues myself. In many ways I am ‘self taught’. I think many of us are. I hope I have encouraged you to take the time to give our daughters a head start in this struggle. To give them the ability to at once be recognized ~by their kindness, by their demeanor, by their hospitality, their ladylike & thoughtful actions~ that at once they would be recognized as Proverbs 31 women.

Blessings