“Who can find a capable wife? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will not lack anything good. She rewards him with good, not evil, all the days of her life…”
So go the words of Proverbs 31. Now if you keep reading, what you’ll find is a description of a woman of faithfulness who does the same thing over and over again. She works with willing hands. She rises while it’s still night. She gives of herself. She makes daily choices for the good of her home.
Over and over again.
Today is Jana’s birthday, and today I am thankful for the kind of lady who does things over and over again. That cyclical pattern is much of what Jana spends her days doing.
She makes the lunches for the kids because they think they’ll get bacterial meningitis if they eat in the cafeteria.
She washes the clothes that have, again, been stained with equal measures of snot and ketchup.
She prepares the same food that will nourish and at the same time be enjoyable (mostly) for her family.
She drives the same route in the same minivan to drop off kids at an endless stream of birthday parties, dance classes, and playdates.
She picks them up, never late, lest they think she has been abducted by aliens.
Then tomorrow she’ll do it again.
Who can find a capable wife? Who can find someone who lives right in the middle of the cycle with grace and purpose and ease? Who can find a partner that doesn’t disdain the day to day but relishes in it?
By God’s grace, I did.
Funny thing about all those things that Jana does so faithfully. Because she quietly lives in the middle of this with great joy, she actually shows her family something incredible in all the little things. She reveals to us, day by day, in all these things, a God who doesn’t get tired of doing the same thing. Here’s how G.K. Chesterton put it:
A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
This is my wife. This is a woman who is strong enough to exult in the monotony. Here is a lady who does the same thing, again and again, and as she does, shows those around her the faithfulness of a God who never gets tired of showing His love and mercy.
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Lovely tribute to an even more lovely person. You two outdo one another in blessing each other, over and over again. What joy!