A Proverbs 31 Woman - Week 3

Welcome back!  This week our study of the Proverbs 31 woman is one I really need to focus on.  It is verses 14-15:

She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.

She gets up while it is still dark;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her servant girls.

Verse 14 talks about a woman who brings food from afar like a merchant ship.  In all honesty, I didn't get this verse for quite awhile.  Does it mean I am supposed to eat exotic foods?  Or that I should travel a great distance to get my food?  Then I began to focus on merchant ships.


Merchant ships were used as far back as the first century BC as a means to carry items across bodies of water.  In some locations they were used to carry items over a short distance because the terrain was to difficult to travel and in others the cargo was carried over a great distance.  As far as food goes, they typically transported wheat, wine, and olive oil.  Transporting by sea was less dangerous than over land and didn't prohibitively increase the cost of the product.  Merchant ships also provided a LOT of extra grain to the Roman area.  History records that at one point Egypt shipped and fed Rome for four months!    After reflecting on this I have come to the conclusion that verse 14 is telling me that I should provide food for my family that will sustain them at an affordable cost.  Note that the foods that merchant ships provided were foods that were healthy, wheat and olive oil.  These were not filler foods, rather they were foods that have a high nutritional value, that are beneficial to the body.  So not only should the food I provide for my family be affordable, it should be nutritious as well.

I do a pretty good job at verse 14, it is 15 that gets me.  Read the first line, "She gets up while it is still dark".  Eww!  I am NOT a morning person.  I would rather sleep late and stay up late than get up early.  So I started to pray about this.  Here is what God put on my heart.  Getting up while it is still dark is important.  It allows you to first spend some quiet time with Him, without interruption from crying babies, or children's clothing disasters, or anything else that may require your attention if the entire house is awake with you.  Second, if you use the time as directed, to prepare food for the family and portions for servants (umm  servants?  the dog maybe, but no servants in this house) you can ensure that your family gets off to a good start for the day.  Studies have shown that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for a child.  It provides what they need for their brain to absorb all that they need to.  If you prepare the food while the family is sleeping, it will also allow you to spend the morning truly WITH your family rather than absently responding to them while you are focusing on preparing the food. 

So my goal, and your task, this week is to make an effort to prepare and serve nutritious food for the family, to get up BEFORE they do and spend some time with God.  Let me know how it goes because I know I will definitely need the encouragement!
Love,

Week 12 - Snowflake Saturday

I know that I have said that I am not big on patterns in which a lot of the beauty comes from the blocking of the pattern, but i just couldn't pass this one up this week.  I doubt I will make either of these since I am woefully behind on my snowflaking and these really won't work for what I intend to do with them (see this post to find out what that is), but given that St. Pat's day was this past week I couldn't resist!  Yet another pattern from Snowcatcher
 
Love,

Coupon Deals and Steals

Some of these deals that I found this morning were to good to not share with you.  So if you have a Kroger near you, be sure to check this out!  Currently Kroger is running a March Madness sale where many items are discounted if you mix and match and buy at least 8.  Here are the deals I found for those

2 boxes of Ronzoni Healthy Harvest noodles free after coupon that you can get here!
Bumble Bee tuna buy 3 at .49 each and get two more free using the coupon here
two boxes of Kellogg's Mini Wheats for $1.52 each using the coupon found here
if you get the kroger mailings there was a coupon in it for $1 off 2 kraft singles packages making them 2 for .99!
There also was a coupon for $1 off kraft natural cheese and $1 off kraft natural shredded cheese making them FREE
Listerine for $1.5 using the coupon here

And if you have a wal-mart that is closer, just take the Kroger flyer to Wal-mart and they will price match the advertised sales. These sale prices are only good until the 20th so get them while you can!







Love,

A Proverbs 31 Woman - Week 2

If you are coming back to continue this examination of self with me, welcome back.  If you are just now finding this, please begin with week 1.

So, did you do your homework.  I have to be honest with you, it was really difficult for me to flat out ask my husband if he trusted me in ALL areas.  I was nervous that there may be something that he had reservations about and had not brought up.  I want very much to be what he needs for me to be so that he can be the man God wants him to be.  Just as I am sure he wants to be the man I need him to be for me to be the woman God wants me to be.  I did work up the nerve though, and was pleased to discover that there were no areas he had reservations about.

The list of qualities was a bit harder for me.  I have always been the type to focus more on my faults than on my good qualities.  That is why I made it a point to make a list, to force myself to identify the good.  I meant it when i said that that I don't believe that is what God wants for us.  So I made my list, how about you?

That brings us to this weeks verses to meditate on:

12 She brings him good, not harm,
       all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax
       and works with eager hands.

Notice that this is a focus on action.  Like many things in the Bible, you heart has to be right first (having noble character) but you have to follow through with actions.  James 2:26 says that, "faith without works is dead".  James had been talking about faith, and had even commented that some say they have faith while we have works and James was attempting to tell them that he demonstrates his faith THROUGH his works.  The works can not replace faith, they are an extension of faith.  I believe that the rest of Proverbs 31 is a statement of how this noble woman demonstrates her value through her works, not to show she is valuable (ie not to earn value)  but because these works are an extension of her noble character.

The first character trait is that she strives to bring good to her husband, to not bring him any harm.  This is a daily effort on her part for the rest of her life.  It isn't contingent on how he treats her, whether he took out the trash or took the kids for a few hours, or remembers to serve her.  This is not an if/then statement.  It is simply a statement.  She does this...period.  I don't believe that this means she loses herself in the process, or that she works so hard at this that she neglects or brings harm to others.  To me this means that given two or more options she chooses the one that helps her husband.  Packing lunches for the kids, take a moment and pack a healthy lunch for you husband also.  You get a phone call to help with a fundraiser at the school that will require you to give up your date night, politely decline and spend the time with your husband.  The big one I had to work on last time I studied this was my tongue.  I had a habit of talking to my best friend at the time when my husband and I were arguing about a topic.  That in and of itself isn't a bad thing, and if the friend is a Godly woman it can even be a good thing.  My problem was that the things I was saying were not things that brought good to my husband.  I attacked him in those conversations rather than his actions or discussing my reaction to his actions.  My words were bringing harm.  This week examine your actions, and your motives.  Are they those that will bring good to your husband?


Next, " She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands"  This is a woman who works, perhaps not at a paying job, but she doesn't sit idle all day long.  She seeks quality materials to work with and then works with them.  My wool and flax tends to be yarn.  I enjoy crochet.  However, I don't think it is so much the material she works with, or what work she is doing with eager hands, so much as that she is working with eager hands.  Admittedly, this is an area that I have slipped away from since I studied this last.  I find that I now spend entirely to much time idle, often in front of this computer screen.  What do you work with eager hands?  Do you work with eager hands?  As women today we are very busy, some of us may work outside the home, others are SAHM's who volunteer quite a bit.  My questions isn't so much do you work, because I know you probably do is some fashion, it is whether or not you do it eagerly.  As a SAHM, I find that I am not so eager to get up and vacuum the house, pick up the toys and various paraphernalia of 4 children, wash dishes, do load after load of laundry every week, cook dinner, and find time to volunteer at the church.  I tend to forget why I am doing this and begin to focus on how much I dislike it.  When I stop and re-examine the why, I find that more often than not these works become less of a chore and more of a gift.  I am blessed to have 4 children to care for, a wonderful husband to cook for, a welcoming and inviting church to volunteer at.  When I re-examine I become eager to do things to help, I begin to work eagerly.  Are you working eagerly? or are you plodding along waiting for it to be done so you can do something else?

I hope that this has helped you in some way today, if so, please let me know! 



Love,

Week 11 - Snowflake Saturday

I really wanted something extra simple and quick this week.  I just really feel like so much is happening in my life between the weight loss group at church that I started, the study and life changes I am attempting to make with A Proverbs 31 Woman, trying to spring clean the house (YUCK!) and everything else going on I wanted a pattern that was kind of "mindless" for me to do, but still turned out pretty.  This is what I decided to do, the Pretty Picots Poinsettia Snowflake.  Hope you like it to! 

Love,