Learning from Older Women Pt 2
I mean, they aren’t women I have met face to face. We have so many wonderful books and people on the internet to learn from, that even if you don’t have an older woman in your area at the moment, you can still learn from others.
Of course the first place to learn about older women is the Bible! We have many examples there. If you haven’t already done so, I’d encourage you to look at some of the women in the Bible and do your own study on their lives. There are Sarah, Esther, Ruth and the wonderful Proverbs 31 woman.
I remember in our first year of marriage I joined a Bible Study with the church ladies. Our pastor’s wife led the study. She was not much older than I was. The topic was the Proverbs 31 woman, and I was so excited to go to the study and learn about her. I will never forget when our pastor’s wife opened the study – she basically said she avoided this chapter of the Bible because it scared her! I remember being shocked and disappointed. Many of the other women in the group agreed with her and from there the study took an almost negative turn in which we looked at how hard it was to live up to her standard! As a young wife I was full of enthusiasm to try to learn from these older women and it was a sad thing to realize that I wasn’t going to learn what I was looking for from them.
I love the passage about the Proverbs 31 woman! I look at it as a standard that I can work towards, not that I will never achieve. I look at the things I am already doing, and the things that I would like to set goals for. I see it as some real instructions especially for us women, in a Book that has instructions for all of mankind.
Without going into the debates about whether the Proverbs 31 woman was a working mum or stay-at-home mum, there are many character traits we can pick up. Just the simple statements:
“The heart of her husband safely trusts her,” v 11
“She does him good and not evil all the days of her life” v12
“She does not eat the bread of idleness”v27
“A woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.”v30
have so much meaning in them. We can talk all we like about the day to day details of what we should be doing or not doing, but they all come back to a woman’s heart for the Lord and her family, and doing what she believes God has called her to do.
The women in the Bible and in real life that I want to emulate are those whose hearts were/are in the right place. I want my heart to be right before God and man too. I want Him first in our family life, and I want to seek to do what He has laid out for me to do.
For me, I believe my calling is to be a keeper of the home, and looking at the practical things the Proverbs 31 woman was doing has a lot of relevance to me, as well as her heart. Learning from her and other women is something that I am constantly seeking to do. I will never “arrive” at the point when I can say – yes, I’ve learned it all now! I hope to be a grey haired, little, chubby, old lady with an apron on, puttering around her kitchen still learning all she can about being a keeper! LOL! What a goal! Actually, I’m well on the way to that physical description….!!!
And another goal? This:
“Her children rise up and call her blessed,
Her husband also, and he praises her…” v 28