For years I’ve been burdened with a desire to serve God to the best of my ability and in whatever capacity He chose to use me. That, coupled with a burden for the lost children of our community and the need for Children’s ministry in our church has led me to question if God is calling me to just such a ministry. After much prayer, and some wise counsel I began a study on a wife/mother’s role as outlined in the Bible and came up with the following principles that have assuaged the guilt of not serving outside the home, taught me that laying treasures up in heaven is far more important than earthly reward, and that motherhood is a calling from God and the place where a married woman fulfills herself in God.

     When I began to consider the woman God wanted me to be, the first place God led me was to Proverbs 31 where I found God’s definition of a virtuous wife. The passage from verses 10 through 31 begins with a description of her marriage, leading to her behavior, character, family life and spiritual life.

 

     The very fact that it describes her marriage first, made me realize that this is my utmost priority after my relationship with Christ.  Genesis 2:18 “And the Lord God said  ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’” I was created to be my husband’s helper. To first of all provide for his needs (i.e. food, clean clothing, peaceful home), then move on to the needs of the rest of the family and finally the church. Proverbs 12:4 states “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband…” Therefore, I’ve found that in order to fulfill my first and foremost priority I need to begin every task with the question “Is this helping my husband?” Is there something I should be doing that would be of more help to him?  This question weighed heavy on my mind as I was thinking about the simple task of reading bedtime stories to my kids. While most experts and educators will tell you this is one of the single most important things  parents can do with their children to prepare them for lifelong learning, it was the manner in which I was doing it and the time of night we found ourselves delving into the books we found so exciting that made me realize I was indeed not helping my husband and needed to re-adjust our reading schedule. I’ve found that, more often than not, we were waiting to read these stories at 9:00 or sometimes even 10:00 at night making for a very late bedtime for the kids. This has been exasperating for my husband, because he has been unable to do the needed paperwork for his landscaping business because of the noise, and it has also left us no time for each other in the evenings. Therefore, even though a task may be worthy of doing, we, as wives and mothers, need to, first of all, consider our husbands needs and then consider the task.