A Happy Mom, A Happy Home
Ann Landers said, "It's high time someone took on the free swinging feminists who have decided for everyone that the married woman who stays home is a brass plate dummy, a lazy three toed sloth or a trader to her Radcliff graduating class. Why has the American woman been made to feel ashamed because she is at home cleaning, washing and ironing, and taking care of her own children? This was once considered nobel and gratifying work. We're told that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world … the nesting instinct is a normal and lovely thing, and most women marry, because they want more than anything in the world to be wives, homemakers and mothers. This is not adolescent hogwash or sloppy sentimentalism, it is real, it is what [being a] woman is all about there's no special magic about a paid job, a great many women who have left jobs, good jobs, insist that the business world is dull and confining, compared with running a home and raising a family. … So much has been written about the educated woman's obligation to society, to do something with her education, that one gets the impression that the college graduate who stays home is copping out. I believe that the reverse is closer to the truth. In my opinion, life's classic cop outs are the women who have advocated their responsibilities to their husbands and children, and to society, because they lack the maturity to stay at home and do the job they bargained for. To be a successful housewife and mother, demands infinitely more emotional balance and moral fiber than is required to hold down a job. Chauffeur, maid, cook, referee, philosopher, rescue squad, hostess, tutor, and psychiatrist, put them all together and they all spell mother. She must be equal to every crisis imaginable. She must expect the unexpected, the child who falls down stairs and cracks his head open, the flooded basement, the busted oil heater, the minor and major battles among her children, coping with these emergencies is the real challenge. How much easier to wiggle into a girdle and beat it out the house in the morning. That's what millions of American women are doing, and the kids show it."
God's picture of an ideal wife and mother. the Maximum Mom. I heard about some cows who were out grazing in a field and they saw a milk truck go by and on the side of that milk truck it said something about the name of the dairy and then it began to advertise the milk. And it said that the milk was pasteurized, homogenized, sanitized, vitamin enriched .One of the cows said to the other one, "it makes you feel inadequate. Doesn't it?" Proverbs 31:10f uses Hebrew alphabet. This maximum mom, this mom from "A" to "Z", if we were to use English letters rather than Hebrew letters, the mom from "A" to "Z". We would find out that she is a home maker. I want you to see that when God just takes a woman that surpasses them all, He idealizes that woman as a mother and a homemaker. Now, with that in mind, get out your Bible, open it in your lap, and let's just take this passage apart verse by verse.
1. HER GREAT WORTH (Pro 31:10-12)
Virtue." A wife of noble character? She is worth far more than rubies." Rubies = the inner glow
A woman who fears the Lord (Pro 31:30)
And the word virtue here really means moral strength.
Illustration: Book of virtue introduction
Her husband has full confidence in her (Pro 31:11)
honest - wise - loyal - prudent
Illustration: You can trust her with the bank account, you don't have to worry about foolish expenditures and selfish demands. Someone wrote these words, their's was a perfect marriage, but for one feminine flaw, he was fast on the deposit, but she was quicker on the draw.
2. HER GOOD WORKS (Pro 31:13-15)
Not all glamour, chauffeur, maid, cook, referee, philosopher, rescue squad, hostess, tutor, psychiatrist, put them all together, she said, and they spell mother.
The New American Standard “not only does she do it willingly she does it in delight." she is doing it as unto the Lord.
Illustration: Mrs. Billy Graham has written above her kitchen sink, "Divine services held here three times a day," she's taking about when she's washing dishes.
Illustration I heard about one of these working women whose husband complained he wanted a hot breakfast. She gave him a match and said, "set your corn-flakes on fire."
3. HER GENUINE WISDOM (Pro 31:16-18)
- She has financial wisdom. (Pro 31:16)
Not at the expense of the home
An extension of the home.
No Independent spirit from her husband
No Competition with her husband
- She has physical wisdom. (Pro 31:17) She knows how to take care of her body
She's into aerobics.
She knows how to eat right.
She knows how to exercise.
She knows how to take care of herself.
She doesn't let herself go.
Illustration You know, some women say, I'm already married. So why chase a street car after you've caught it? Well, I want to tell you lady, you'd be very wise if you keep yourself physically right.
- Her genuine wisdom; (Pro 31:18) she studies "She sees that her merchandise is good.
4. HER GENEROUS WELFARE (Pro 31:19-20)
This woman has learned some real skills.
Her skills benefit others
5. HER GRAND WARDROBE (Pro 31:21-22)
Fashion conscious. (Not a washer woman.)
Illustration: Family class at Liberty, on dress. Sweats and grubs. Dressing up for work but slobs at home and they wonder why their husband is running around on them.
Function conscious …snow... (here is a woman who has dressed her children warmly)
6. HER GIFTED WIFE-HOOD (Pro 31:23-25)
Now she is to her husband, a help meet.
She is a completer, enhancer to her husband.
Illustration: Somebody has well said, "Behind every good man there is a good woman, and a surprised mother-in-law." a woman is to a man, listen ladies, a woman is to a man what a wind is to a fire. She can fan it up or blow it out.
She's a business woman (Pro 31:24)
She has a calm and gentle spirit.
7. HER GRACIOUS WORDS (Pro 31:26-27)
Control of her tongue.
Why she's not screeching at her kids, whining at her husband?
She's already been up early in the morning
Her life is well ordered.
Her heart is at peace with God.
Illustration: When you dear lady or sir, lash out at others it tells more about you than almost anything else. If you're one who just simply is lashing out, lashing out, lashing out, you're a person whose not at peace with yourself. And if you're not at peace with yourself, it's because you're not at peace with God. And if you're not at peace with God, it is because you have not had this quality time, this priority time with Almighty God.
8. HER GLOWING WITNESS (Pro 31:28)
- Her witness to her children. - Her children rise up and call her blessed. 1 John 1:4
Illustration: Kate Wiggins said , "most of the good and beautiful things in life come by twos and by threes and by dozens and hundreds. There are plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins, but there's only one mother in the whole world." Nobody can take your place. Oh, her witness to her children.
- Her witness to her husband, her husband will praise her.
Illustration: If God has given you a good wife, her price is far above rubies. You need to give her the paycheck of praise and admiration. You need to tell her over and over and over and over again, and you can never tell her enough how much you love her, how much you praise God for her, how much you thank God for her.
Illustration: I think it probably says more about her husband than it says about her, because evidently he is somebody who has loved her, and prayed for her, and freed her to be the kind of a woman that she could be.
- Her witness to her community* (Pro 31:31)
Illustration: I heard about one woman who was a member of this thing and that thing, you know, she was the second vice-president of for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for Orphan Grandmothers with Athlete's Foot. And she was this and this and this, and finally when she died, they put on her tombstone, "Here lies Mary Smith, she was clubbed to death."
CONCLUSION:
My dear friend, we have been sold a bill of goods in this day and age in which we live. All that this dear woman did, she did because Jesus enabled her, and she was beautiful. She may have been outwardly, the Bible doesn't say, but I know she was inwardly, because she was a woman of virtue. Now if that's made you feel inadequate ladies, I'm going to tell you again, that's a guide, that's goal, that's an idea, but it's one that we can aim for.