Proverbs 31 Miseries

Sometimes I feel like scrolling through a Facebook newsfeed can be a thousand points of jealousy for me.

“So let’s see. Judy printed a gluten free recipe…I should probably give up gluten.  Oh, Sally finished her triathlon. She looks all shiny and accomplished. Well. Good. For. Her.  Oh, look at the Jones’s kids, they did a photo shoot.  They’re so cute…I don’t take enough professional photos of my child.  I just take regular photos. What kind of memories are regular photos? When she looks back at those she’ll think we don’t love her.  Bible verse, I guess I’ll give it an obligatory like.  Somebody updated her profile pic with her new cute haircut, obligatory like.  Janet took a picture of her plate.  Well, well, well, look at your healthy, delicious meal, Janet.  That looks awesome.  Is toast awesome? Because that was my dinner: toast!  I made a good meal yesterday but I forgot to take a picture and put it on Facebook.  It’s like it never happened!!!”

*sigh and go to Pinterest*

This Facebook jealousy happens all the time.  A few quick scrolls down my wall and I turn an ugly shade of green.

Similar to the color I turned when reading Better Homes and Gardens in my last post.

To briefly review my last post, I spoke about seeing someone who has it all together and how I had conflicting feelings about her.  (Loving how awesome she was while at the same time hating how awesome she was.)  And I spoke about how what I’m really trying to decipher is my worth or how I add up.  I concluded that I am worth Christ’s death on the cross, which isn’t anything I can earn.

My problem with that conclusion is that it doesn’t make me feel any better.  Before the true awfulness of that sentence sets in, let me explain.

I am trying to feel successful.  I want to be able to say at the end of the day when I lay my head on the pillow, “Nailed it! Now that is how you do a Wednesday.”

So I use the comparison game to see how I’m doing.  “She’s able to get that much done in the day, and I can do a little more than that, so I’m all right.  At least I don’t feed my child that.  At least I’m able to keep up with xyz.”  I look at other people’s lives in order to decide how I am shaping up.

Anyone can see why this is dangerous.  We are not all built the same. We don’t have the same strengths.  There will always be someone better than you or worse than you.  We cannot size up our lives by looking to the right or to the left. 

So where do I look?  Where is the standard so I can measure if I am successful as a human being or not?

 

Some might say we are to be Christ-like.  And I hear you on that. But don’t you realize that I will never be truly Christ-like, not this side of glory anyway?  So although this is something I will strive for, I will fail at it every day.  I will never be perfect.  So then how do I not feel like a failure?

Well, what examples of successful women do we have in the Bible?  You know who I’m going to bring up.  I don’t know about you, but when a preacher says he’s going to preach on this subject I always feel an inward groan and think, “Oh, her.”

I am speaking of the Proverbs 31 woman, or the virtuous woman as she is called in that passage of scripture.

The passage should really be read for itself.  But to summarize, it speaks of a woman who tends to her household, her children, and her husband, and who is also outstanding in business, art, and textiles.  And the sum of the description is overwhelming.  And when I read it I get the same “I’d like to push her down a flight of stairs” jealousy I’ve mentioned before.

Let’s say that Virtue (as I like to call her) had a Facebook page.

“Oh, Virtue took family photos.  They look sooo good – did she really make all of their outfits?  Is this what she serves for dinner every night?  A homemade soufflé and a salad with tomatoes from her own garden?  So she packs school lunches at dawn. Wow. Wait, did she just say she bought a vineyard!?!”

*sigh and go back to Pinterest*

Somehow I’ve turned Virtue into Martha Stewart.  Actually, now that I think of it, she might be Martha Stewart.  Well, with less jail time.

This picture of Virtue is a gross disservice to the passage.  I think it would be easier to follow her as an example if she was someone I could meet or talk to, someone who has small failings and makes little mistakes.   It would also help if the verses came with some small qualifiers.  It might be easier if the passage read more like this:

“She is like the ships of the merchants; she brings her food from afar. And sometimes that’s as far as Pizza Hut.

She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household,but not before her coffee.

With the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard, but then the first one died so she had to get better fertilizer.

She makes bed coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple.  And occasionally she spills some smoothie on her blouse before a meeting.

And she does not eat the bread of idleness, but she does like bagels.”

Now, I know there are other qualifiers to the passage.  That this list of accomplishments covers a lifetime, and isn’t something that Virtue did all in one day.  Or some people look at this passage and say that this shows the many facets of womanhood, and that we are able to be many different things.

In short, this passage was never meant to be a list to hold myself up to.  In fact, there is no checklist to rate myself by.  

But there is one verse that stands out from that passage.

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

And also a verse in the New Testament:

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31

I think I have decided that feeling “successful” is not about a checklist, because there will always be more to do.  Maybe it is about the question.

“How do I glorify God today?” 

Because if we can learn anything from Virtue (and there’s a lot to be learned; the passage is rich), it’s that whatever she put her hand to, she tried to do it to the glory of God.  Did she fail to finish all her tasks? Yup.  But the next day she tried again.

Now, I said that my worth coming from Christ’s death on the cross doesn’t make me feel any better, but I shouldn’t forget that it is the balm that allows me to be covered in grace.  So that whether or not I nail my list for the day, the truth is that I am serving a living and engaging God who forgives my sins and gives grace for my small mistakes, and that I don’t have to feel guilty.  His death on the cross may not tell me how I’m adding up, but it does say that I don’t have to.

So the plan is this: that every day I’ll ask the Lord to help me know what I should do that day.  And to show me the best way to spend my time (which sometimes means blowing off my list of tasks for the needs of a friend) At the end of the day I will praise the Lord for what He helped me to get done, and I’ll ask Him to forgive me if I was foolish with my time, and I’ll rest in the fact that both are covered in His grace.  Then I’ll put my head on a pillow and sleep.  It’s not necessarily “Nailed it!”  It’s more of “I’m covered.”  And His mercies will be new for tomorrow as well.  So why should I worry?