Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Proverbs 31:10 (04/13/23)
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TITLE: The Perfect Wife | Previous Challenge Entry
By Nnenna Moneme
04/19/23 -
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Is it possible to marry a perfect wife? - this question was one I constantly pondered on in my teenage years as I observed the women my close relatives married. Their unpleasant attitudes made me detest marriage while vowing to be different if I ever marry. I was unsure how to navigate the desired difference until a few years later when I got saved and realised that Christian marriages can be different.
The campus fellowship was one place that provided the pivotal learning ground for me to flourish in this new understanding. My Christian faith grew in leaps and bounds as I sat under various teachers of the Word who were frequently invited for programs. In eagerness to learn how one can become a good Christian wife and mother, we attended any gathering that promotes such knowledge.
It did not take long to observe that conferences, retreats and seminars on marriage frequently portrayed the Proverbs 31 woman as the Ideal or perfect wife that every Christian husband would gladly embrace as wife.
We admired and aspired to be like this role model as we learnt cooking, baking and how to fit this perfect wife’s role. For me, the trouble with this perfect model was that the more I tried to meet all the qualities required, the more I failed woefully. One example of such failure is that I hated rising early in the morning. I love reading or writing late into the night so having an early start the next day rarely works for me.
On one occasion, I listened to a speaker teach about the proverbs 31 women in yet another retreat. I was spellbound at the speaker's many examples of virtuous women who tried to model their lives to mirror this Ideal woman. The one thing that got me thinking was how one woman could run a business, yet have the energy to do house chores as well as raise kids. She must be a superhero. As soon as we were given time to reflect, I explored the chapter verse by verse.
Upon reading verse fifteen, I screamed because it said she had maids.
"Yippee! She had servants!"
"No wonder she could do it all"
Coming from Africa, I know what having servants entails. Once a woman can hire a maid, she can run the home with little or no stress. She can delegate all house chores and then have enough time to love on her man and the kids. This discovery was liberating since it clarified that I was not lazy by being unable to meet up with everything needed for the perfect wife. More so, an inductive bible study brought the assurance I needed when it clarified that this chapter was reflecting Christ Jesus, our perfect example not necessarily a perfect woman. Perhaps this may be why the concluding verse says- "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised".* Reading these words and realising all I needed was to fear the Lord made my understanding become as clear as crystal.
How liberating it was to know that I am not unvirtuous if I can't wake up at 5am to do it all. Just being a Christian and living for Christ was all that mattered after all. This revelation brought freedom to be myself.
Many years after this campus learning, I married a minister. Being the wife of a minister meant that I had to wear many hats. I began living out learned Christian virtues like having a gentle and quiet spirit, submitting to my husband and sacrificially serving my husband, kids and our local church; as instructed in the bible. The more I deployed these biblical learnings, the less the inadequacy I felt and the more I began to hear people call me a virtuous woman. My husband remains the number one admirer as he frequently says I am an answer to his prayers and I remind him of his Godly mother.
Honestly, it still a surprise to hear my husband call me a virtuous woman when all I did was live like a Christian displaying the fruit of the spirit daily with God-given strength. Looking back, I am delighted the Lord had shaped me to be different from the women I observed in my teenage ages. Now I have the answer to the question I once pondered - A virtuous (perfect) woman can be found in Christ. Hurray!
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*Proverbs 31:30 KJV
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