I remember crying until I was completely spent. Then from somewhere deep within me I cried out, “God, is it always going to be this bad? Am I always going to be this unhappy? Lord, I cannot raise my children in this. Please Help me. Change me. Whatever it takes, change ME. I’ll quit trying to fix Kent. I’ll leave that up to You. Change ME.”
The next morning I woke up and my world had not changed. But I had. When Kent didn’t do as I’d hoped or react any differently than usual, I found I could let it go. I could talk about it, pray about it, to God instead. I still lost patience. I still messed up, but I was better. In the evenings when I strolled the kids around the neighborhood, our oldest began to ask for Bible stories. Having grown up in church, I knew the main ones, but she kept asking and I began to run out of material, so I got out my Bible and started, “In the beginning.” A teacher at heart, I also got out a notebook and pen and took notes. I even made a family tree.
By the time I’d finished Genesis, the stories had come alive. They weren’t just stories, they were deeper and they applied to my everyday life. I also realized that the people in the stories were messed up in all kinds of ways, but God used them to do some pretty remarkable things, things that were foundational to my faith. If He could do that with them, he could do it with me too. Shortly after that, my P31WOG friend encouraged a group of us to go to a conference to hear a new speaker. She said, “You won’t remember her name, but you’ll remember her message,” so we spent the weekend with about 1000 women listening to Beth Moore give her remarkable testimony of pain in her own life, what she called “face in the carpet” praying, and how God’s Word was changing her life.
I came home and started doing her Bible studies. They were involved, had lots of homework, and I often finished weeks after the group quit meeting, but like my mom taught me, I followed through and didn’t stop until I finished and my life began to change too.
Fast forward. I have three kids, junior high to college age. Another friend asked me to meet with her regularly and invited me to an inductive Bible study. I remember my P31WOG friend doing these and they involved way more homework and also colored pens. My life is too busy for this, but after much prayer and contemplation, I realize I need to do this, and anyway, I love colored pens. We embark on a year and a half long study of Revelation. Not the book I would have chosen, but I find it very different than I thought it would be. It’s a book of encouragement and hope and we study the Bible cover to cover with all the cross references.
During the eighteen months of our study, Kent starts a photography business and adds nights and weekends to his work schedule, I’m dealing with the challenges of raising teenagers, and my dad decides to leave my mom after fifty years of marriage. Mom stays with us for a couple of weeks and pulls a book off our bookshelf to read, “The Gift of Forgiveness,” by Charles Stanley and I think she learned the same thing I learned curled up on that couch years before. As for me, God knew I needed this study and this group of women for this time in my life.
Fast forward again. It’s the Monday after Mother’s Day weekend and our youngest just came home for the summer after her freshman year of college. Kent calls to say he’s been let go at work. My first thought, “How are we going to make it?” My second, “We’re going to kill each other. We’ll be at home together 24/7. What are You doing, Lord?” Marriage still isn’t in our wheelhouse and the stress level is high. My Bible study group decides to study James, a book of “boots to the ground” Christianity. God knew what I needed, even when I did not.
Something amazing happened in the next seven months. As Kent first healed from the hurt of being let go from a company he’d worked with for nineteen years, then began the long hunt for a new job, God taught me to put my agenda on hold and minister to my husband. We began to like each other, do things together, and for the first time in our marriage, I learned what it was like to be married to my best friend. Our kids were astounded.
Fast forward, last time. My mom hasn’t felt well for a couple of months. She’s finally seen a specialist and had tests done. I’ve packed a bag to go down and drive her to get her results. I figure she’ll need her gall bladder out, I’ll stay for a few days until she’s on her feet (I mean, this is my mom, nothing daunts her) and then life will go on as usual. Neither of us is prepared for Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma, Stage IV, inoperable, not curable.
I helped her to a bench outside the door of the medical center, walked to get the car, and immediately called Kent. “Kent, it’s bad, really bad. She’s going to need us. Can I bring her home?” His reply, “Of course. Bring her. We’ll be okay.” God knew before we did what we needed. He had healed our marriage and prepared us for this next challenge. Over the next nine months Kent and our kids were great. Along with my brother and his family, a host of Mom’s friends, and her church family, we took care of Mom. And in the process, God healed my relationship with her as well. It was a terrible experience watching her decline, but beautiful in that we had some good healing time together. What book were we studying in Bible study? Ruth. Perfect. Mom even studied it with me.
As I left the hospital, exhausted, after finding out Mom only had about three weeks left with us, a Chris Tomlin song came on the radio. “You’re a good good Father…it’s who You are. I am loved by You…it’s who I am. You call me deeper still…You’re a good good Father.” I sang it with tears streaming down my face feeling the truth of every word echoing down through my entire life to that point. God had always been faithful, even when I had not.
So, what does all this have to do with Proverbs 31? Being that strong capable woman it describes would make it easy to believe we’ve got this, that we can do life without God. In the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall, the main character says that our faith isn’t real until “We’ve shaken our fist at God.” She isn’t advocating defiance, but instead, straightforward questions, honest dialogue, candid conversation about the real things in our lives like David in the Psalms. God has proven to me over and over that He’s big enough for my questions. He’s got the answers before I even know to ask. And through all the seasons of my life, He’s taught me that the Proverbs 31 woman isn’t only the characteristics listed in verses 10-28. The bar is much higher than that. It goes on to say that this woman finds her identity in Christ, not self, and honors God in all she is and does. She acknowledges the truth of verse 30, the one my brother and I had engraved on my Mom’s gravestone.
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” ESV
I want to be a P31WOG.
