Proverbs 31 - Part III

"Her children arise up, and call her blessed." Proverbs 31:28

I may have been irritated with the man in Bible study who felt the Virtuous Woman of Proverbs 31 never existed, but the truth is, his observation that some women find her to be an impossible role model is true. What does this woman not do?

Discouragement on the part of women reading these verses arises, in my mind, from two erroneous lines of thought. One, that there is no cultural context in the Bible, and that every word is to be taken literally, and two, that achievements on this scale can be matched early in life.

Yes, I would probably despise the Virtuous Woman, too, if I thought I'd somehow failed by not planting a vineyard (like that is going to happen a growing zone 4 anyway) or I had to get up before sunrise every day. But to me those individual accomplishments aren't the point. The Virtuous Woman is a role model to me because of the type of person she was. The things she did only reflected who she was on the inside. I may not lay my hands to the spindle and make fine linen, but I hope my behavior in life has shown I have grown to be like her.

I would also like to point out that a toddler arising up and calling his mother blessed doesn't mean a whole lot. Clearly, these are adult children speaking, indicating this women was at least middle-aged. A wise woman once told me "You can do it all, you just can't do it all at once." Very good advice, for all of us. We need to be patient with our goals and dreams, and we are never too old to come up with new ones.