Virtuous Mistress
/My husband has a mistress, and If you are reading this blog, your husband probably does too.
You might not be comfortable with that, but I want to assure you, it's not as bad as it seems.
Depending on what kind of literature you read, and media you watch, your motives for clicking "read more,"
might have been out of concern, or curiosity.
Either way..........
I'm glad you stopped by. Notice the title does not say Virtual Mistress. That is a whole different blog post.
Mistress: a woman who has power, authority, or ownership: as
a : the female head of a household
b : a woman who employs or supervises servants
c : a woman who is in charge of a school or other establishment
I am not going to go in the normal direction and take you to the acrostic poem in Proverbs. Many ladies that wonder how to be a good wife, or honorable woman are given a map that leads them to proverbs 31. I look at that and wonder how I could become Martha Stewart, Hillary Clinton, and Mother Teresa all at once!
I want to take you to somewhere else. Titus 2:4 is one of those little nuggets of Gold that helps me know God loves me. It says: "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children."
What is so refreshing is what the scripture does not say. It does not say women by nature are loving creatures, and this should be evident in their relationship with their husbands and children. It reveals what many of us perfectionist, are afraid to admit. We don't have it all together, we don't know how to be sober, and sometimes we struggle loving our husbands and children. For the single, wouldn't it be nice if you knew how to love before you found yourself in counseling, under the scrutiny of super mamas @ playdate, or in divorce court?
So take a breathe my fair mistress, you are right where you need to be. I have been reading different translations of the bible, some that adopt idea for idea translations, and others that are literal word for word. But what started my study on this idea of a virtuous woman started when I was reading my NIV bible and had not extra tools.
Proverbs 12:4a A wife of noble character is her husband's crown,
What is character?
Romans 5:3-4 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Suffering
I wanted to know how to get character, and found myself reading about suffering. Charming, really, but in my concordance ( NIV bible), I could not find it anywhere accept for Romans 5, and proverbs. Now it does not mean that it wasn't there, but my limited tools and no word studies available, that is what I found. I saw that character was connected to suffering. How do you get character? Well, the only pinpoint map I found was in Romans. Our every day trials, and struggles produce perseverance, and that produces character, and character produces hope. The word character, has at it's core a link to military trying or testing.
Many might name Rahab (she was a hooker), Bathsheba (had an affair with David), or Mary Magdalene as a mistress, and they are correct, but not for the reasons they think. Mary (the mother of Jesus), Abigail, and Hannah are virtuous women religious point others to study desiring to be an honorable women. The book of Matthew honors four women in Jesus' lineage. They were Rahab, Bathsheba, Tamar, and Ruth and were scandalous women who did not quite have the best beginnings. The one thing that is common in all of them, is that they suffered, persevered and they took the test called life, and hoped in God.
Are you suffering reading through Proverbs 31, seeing the check boxes not checked off. Fear not. One little side note I would like to highlight the disclaimer at the beginning of proverbs 31.
"The sayings of King Lemuel—an inspired utterance his mother taught him."
It was Mama's advice to her son.
Praise the Lord! The mystery is over.........
A mother in law with a checklist.
We as mothers, or sisters of a beloved brother, have very high expectations of a woman that will spend the rest of her life with a man we want the best for.
I want to strip all the (knowing how to sew, being an excellent investor, decorator, and fashion designer) check boxes away, and praise God for clarifications of the law. We have the ten commandments, and Jesus did some stripping too. He said in Matthew 22:37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
LOVE! Married, widowed, single, divorced, or whatever that title is before you claim "woman," stop lamenting over expectations unchecked, and be at peace that God does not want you in or your focus on a box.
Focus on the perfect love of Christ, and the established work he did on the cross for you. As you walk with him through this test called life, he will take you through a process called sanctification. Any time someone asks about the perfect man, we are pointed to Jesus. This is the same for a woman. Look to Jesus. Without him, we don't even have love.
1 John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
God is love, and love is:
patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. & And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7 & 13)
Some perfectionist just can't stand it without some clarification, or check boxes, so here you go fellow mistresses.
- Love God
- Love others as you Love yourself
- Uses 1 Corinthians as a checklist for what love is.
- Praise God, love is not an emotion
- Ask God for other successful women to help you navigate your walk with him
- Have faith, that he is changing you
- Hope in times of suffering for that is where you get character from.
So King Lemuel's mama wanted a her son to find a woman with noble character and it boils down to "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."
Let the sweet whispers of Christ whoo you, and his word wash you clean, one step at a time.
