It’s time to continue our series on the Proverbs woman. Please know that the lack of posts on this subject has much less to do with the practicality and efficacy of God’s Written Word than it does with my poor time management techniques. I’m a work in progress like everyone else, and sometimes I’m making more progress than others times, yk?

Proverbs 12:4

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who causes shame is like rottenness in his bones.

When I read this verse again this morning, because it had indeed been sometime since I read it, I found myself thinking about different ways we shame our husbands. Are you like me, that it’s a lot easier to voice what not to do that it is to figure out what we ought to do sometimes? I mean, I know what an excellent wife is, and I think most of us do, but she just encompasses so much that it’s hard to put it in words. There’s a lot that she doesn’t do, too, right? For today let’s focus on how we shame our husbands, so that we can focus on being crowns instead.

Before we do that, let’s just clarify one thing. Can a man stand if his bones are rotten? No? Ok, then, moving on.

How then, do we best shame our husbands? We can:

argue with him over petty things
disregard his simplest requests
contradict or correct him in front of others
talk over him in public
speak for him instead of letting him speak
question his intentions and motives frequently
fail to keep the home tidy so he can’t bring guests over
fail to keep his children clean and combed
frequently outspending his earnings
deny his advances
not take care of our physical appearance (basic self care, hygiene, etc)
ignore the priorities he sets for our time

Most of these are little things that we may do without thinking, and maybe one incident alone isn’t that big a deal, but a consistent pattern of these behaviors can be really damaging to our husbands’ spirits. I’m just as guilty over this list as any other woman. I get busy, I get focused, I get sidetracked, and I forget that my primary purpose is to be a “beck and call girl”. My friend giggles when I say that, but look back at Genesis. Why was Eve created? Because God thought it wasn’t good for Adam to be by himself, and he needed a companion to help him. Look here at 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.”

That’s right. There it is: like it, lump it, or be indifferent to it. Our job is helper. We are tasked to carry out our husband’s wishes in his absence. We have to lay aside our own ideas of “how it ought to be”, and do as he requests. Not that we can’t calmly and respectfully try to change his mind, of course, but in the end, it’s to be his call.

Ladies, and I am talking to myself here, that isn’t as big a burden as it sounds. There is a great weight lifted there, because if we are faithfully carrying out instructions, then we are not responsible for the outcome. Our responsibility ends when we carry out the instructions. Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Like you have too much to do and not enough time or resources to do it? If you have a husband, give that load right on back to him. It’s not your weight, it’s his! That is most likely what that passage about women being weaker vessels (1 Peter 3:7) means. We just are not made to carry all that. It’s not a failure on our part when we can’t, either. It’s just the way we are made. And accepting that, and letting him be the protector and covering he is intended to be and thriving within our God-given role is one more way we can be a crown to our husband.

One final thing, and it’s probably the hardest part of this whole post. If your husband fails to step up and do what he ought, try, try, try to not step in and fill his roles. That junk about “women have to do because men won’t” is one of the biggest and best lies Satan has thrown at our families and society since he told Eve that fruit sure looked good. I really, really believe that often times men don’t act because bossy, brassy women step into their shoes while they are planning what action to take. I’ve seen it over and over in my own marriage. If I wait on dh to render a decision, even if it takes more than the 30 seconds I allot him, then things go well. If I plunge ahead because I get aggravated that he’s taking time to think, then I am back tracking and trying to put out fires that I cause by my own pig-headedness.

Let’s talk about some names that stop traffic. You know the kind they drop in the movies so theeaudience learns that the character has insane amounts of money, impeccable taste and oodles of class?? Names lke Tiffany’s, Cartier, and my favorite, Louboutin. Oh that last one isn’t in there? Well, it should be. But let’s just back away from the shoes so nobody gets hurt, mostly me, and get back to the baubles.

If I were to decide to buy cartier it would probably be the Pasha watch shown at the right. That pink dial just gets me, and I do like the look and feel of stainless steel for the band. And plus, it’s water resistant to 100 meters, so when I forget and plunge my hand into hot sudsy water because I need to clean something, it wouldn’t die. You don’t even want to know how many watches I have killed that way! So tell me, which of these Cartier watches is your favorite, and why?

When you choose a watch, do you prefer form or function, or are they equally important to you? Do you think of a watch as an heirloom? I know that my grandparents probably didn’t think of them that way, but their watches are among my most treasured possessions: I have them displayed in my kitchen, so I see them each time I go in there. I still remember how those watches looked on their wrists. Isn’t it funny what the mind holds on to?

Here I am on Friday afternoon, thinking about what I can snack on for 200 calories or less. And also, maybe a nap.

I have been collecting post ideas for my various blogs for a while, and tey were all stacked in an unruly pile on my desk, where I could never find the specific page I needed when I was ready to blog. As a result, I have missed blogging about some things I thought were pretty important, because the event passed and I forgot about it until it was too late.

I’ve done a couple of things to help with that problem. One, I have started using Google calendar and I also bought this nifty thing:

It holds my idea articles, dividing by blog topic, and I can find just what I need when I need it. And it looks perky sitting on my desk. I like perky.

And there we have it: one more way I’m trying to keep my sanity.

The power went out on Wednesday, so we decided to have some spontaneous fun, playing dominoes. And also wrestling, I guess.

Click here to play Photo Friday.

Sweaters and Febreze! Now I know that seems like a funny combination, but as I type this it is a chilly 67 degrees, the wind is blowing and it is raining sideways. Sideways, people! But chilly! I may get to wear some of my sweaters this year. Those sweaters have been sitting folded neatly in my closet for the past several years because it has been too hot to wear them except for a couple of weeks in the dead of winter. Seriously, it hasn’t been cold here since … Katrina. I’m excited!

I have no intention of washing them all in preparation, just in case I end up disappointed. Instead, I am going to use the new Febreze fabric and air freshener. That way my closet will smell good if I end up just refolding them all and shelving them for another year.

And no, that’s not all my sweaters. It’s just all I could fit in one picture. I told you I have a sweater issue. But did you catch that part about making the closet smell good? yeah, the new Febreze is also an air freshener! I tried the Lavender Vanilla and Comfort, and it was yummy. Which is nice, Because if I have my way about it, that will be my signature scent for a couple of months this year

What was the most unusual (for you) book you ever read? Either because the book itself was completely from out in left field somewhere, or was a genre you never read, or was the only book available on a long flight… whatever? What (not counting school textbooks, though literature read for classes counts) was furthest outside your usual comfort zone/familiar territory?

And, did you like it? Did it stretch your boundaries? Did you shut it with a shudder the instant you were done? Did it make you think? Have nightmares? Kick off a new obsession?

Hmm, as far as I know, I haven’t read any weird books. I’ve read good books and bad books, long books and short books, tall books and short books and many, many, Dr. Suess books ;), but I tend to take books at face value and so I don’t consider them “weird”. It may be that I just like a lot of different kinds of books: Robert Ludlum, Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Sharon Kay Penman, Diana Gabaldon, Robert Heinlein–all good, mostly different, and not weird at all.

How many funeral visitations will I go to before it stops being about my grandparents?