- Scripture
She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.
~Prverbs 31:15, NLT
Quote
The woman was formed out of the man–not out of his head to rule over him, not from his feet to trample over him–but from his side to be his helpmate, from under his arm to be protected and from near his heart to be loved.
~Matthew Henry
My daddy’s favorite verse was Proverbs 31:15. Our pastor loved to use this passage on Mother’s day. Proverbs 31 describes the ideal woman; thank God there is no passage describing the ideal man. When Daddy came home from WWII, he started cooking breakfast. He did keep mother barefoot and pregnant but not in the kitchen. She had four children before the war and four after. Since it was him who was getting her pregnant, he thought he would help her by doing breakfast and it took. He cooked breakfast the rest of his life. My children loved to eat his breakfast because he always had meat. He believed that meat gave you energy. Big Mama’s kitchen is Big Mama’s kitchen. If I were you, I would not mess with Big Mama’s kitchen. She is the chief cook and bottle washer. My mother was just the opposite. If you wanted to cook, she let you cook. Anyway, when our pastor would preach Proverbs 31, Daddy would needle mother about verse 15…He would say, “Mama, when are you going to rise before dawn and cook my breakfast?” She always had a quick retort, “As soon as you get me the servant girls.”
Proverbs 31 pictures the ideal woman but a woman does not have to be perfect to be virtuous or worthy of praise. My mother wasn’t perfect but she was virtuous. She had the courage of lion and she was a defender of the poor and the oppressed. Our house became an orphanage when I was in high school. She took in three girls that had no place to live. A quarter of a mile behind our house lived a woman who was mentally challenged and some sorry man got her pregnant. Mother adopted this child at Christmas. I grew up believing in Santa Claus because I knew one of his helpers. Before we went to bed Christmas Eve, we delivered this kids stuff. Someone would drive the pickup, let me out with the stuff and then drive down the road and turn around. I carried the gifts to the porch and left them near the door and then caught my ride back to the house. She spent more on this kid than she did her own kids or grandkids.
My mother was not perfect, no one is–we all have our faults but when it comes down to it, we can do the right thing if we have the courage to be different. My mother was not afraid to be different: she did what she believed was right in spite of the unpleasant circumstances.