She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. (Proverbs 31:13-15)
The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down. (Proverbs 14:1)
The woman who demonstrates lovingkindness
provides food that she has brought from afar to her family and her female
servants. That brings us back to the idea of lovingkindness as adding the topping
to that piece of bread. She doesn’t provide the bare minimum, “bread and water”
to those under her care and she doesn’t loll in bed waiting for her servants to
bring her breakfast. She sounds remarkably like the woman one of the anchors on
the Today Show maligned and mocked. Apparently, she posted something on social
media about not going to bed until she had her family’s lunch made for the next
day. Quite probably there was more to it than that, but I haven’t seen the
post. The anchor waxed eloquent about going “back to the 50s.” Again, there was
undoubtedly more to her commentary, but you get the idea from just that much.
From what Solomon’s mother teaches in
this treatise, the woman who makes the lunches is demonstrating lovingkindness.
She’s also being an effective household manager. Why cook every night? Why get
up in the morning with the stress of making breakfast and lunch, or enduring
the chaos of two or more people in the kitchen trying to make their own
breakfasts and lunches at the same time? When I’m at my best, the main course
of dinner gets cooked so that I have meals for several weeks and only have to
reheat it and add the sides. While I’m reheating and cooking the side dishes, I
put together the next day’s lunch for at work. If I’m even more at my best, I
put out the dishes and non-perishables required for the next day’s breakfast
before I go to bed.
Of course, I only have to oversee the
care of a dog, the birds, a garden, and myself. I don’t have family or servants
to add to the mix, but again, we’re talking about lovingkindness. It’s going
that little extra to be more than just kind, more than just basic. It reminds
me of a rather crudely put (and I apologize for the language) comment made by
William Golding about women:
“I think women are foolish to pretend
they are equal to men. They are far superior and always have been. Whatever you
give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she will give you a
baby. If you give her a house, she will give you a home. If you give her
groceries, she will give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she will give you
her heart. She multiples and enlarges whatever is given to her…”
He’s inaccurate. I don’t
think all women make what she’s given greater, but the woman demonstrating
lovingkindness certainly does. There are other women who can’t be bothered to
care for their children or household and/or who mock and scorn other women
instead of building them up. These are described in Scripture as foolish women.
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