Please don’t resent your husband for resting but rather join him as his wife, pray together and shake the dust of the day off both your feet. Joining him when there is still work to do is not being lazy, it is being obedient and submissive as his wife, life partner and friend.

Still we must remember the values taught in Proverbs 31: A Godly woman is priceless, faithful, good, diligent, enterprising, disciplined, thrifty, energetic, industrious, persistent, kind, farsighted, elegant, helpful, creative, confident, wise, prudent, loving, excellent, reverent, virtous, and a treasure! Make yourself a list and identifies the points where you are already a Proverbs 31 woman then try to add one more to you list until it is conquered, then add one more. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

God’s peace and grace to you always! Jo Ann, Project One Fifty (Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6)

Please don’t mistake the need for rest for the ‘bread of idleness’. Don’t you know that even a woodcutter has to take time out to sharpen his saw? Reading your bible, prayer and meditation are the very things you need to sustain you, give you strength and keep you going. If you’re not resting, particularly in the Lord, then of course you’re going to feel exhausted.

Be kind to yourself and allow yourself time to spend with our Lord, reading his Word, and just relaxing. You don’t have to get everything finished every day. But in resting, you’ll find you have renewed energy and enjoyment in life and that you’ll probably achieve more than you could before.

The Proverbs 31 Woman is a great example to work towards but she is an example and none of us can ever expect to reach perfection in our lifetime.

By the way – give yourself permission to go and sit with your husband in the evenings. He married you to be with you and a ‘perfect wife’ cannot be so if she’s not spending time with her husband.

Proverbs 31:15 says, “She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.”

I start waking up at 5:00 in the morning and actually get up around 5:30 so I can start getting my two children ready for school. I feed them breakfast even though they also get breakfast at school. It’s hard for me to see them leave the trailer on an empty stomach. It’s still dark at this time, so I guess I’m complying with this verse.

Proverbs 31:27 says, “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.”

Here’s where it gets difficult for me. I do the housework, and it never gets completely finished. There’s always something else that needs to be done, whether it’s laundry, dishes, sweeping, or general tidying up. So I work the whole day long, sometimes skipping meals because scripture doesn’t encourage rest. It would be considered “the bread of idleness”.

Then I come to Proverbs 31:18, which says, “She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.”

Well, I’m really ready for bed at 8:00 p.m., after working the entire day. I haven’t allowed myself time for rest or Bible study because I wouldn’t be on the move. I’d have to “eat the bread of idleness” in order to study my Bible, listen to music, or generally unwind. Many days I have to endure chest pains that last for two days at a time, yet my EKG showed nothing wrong with my heart. (My husband doesn’t seem to feel guitly about sitting in front of the television while I’m cooking and cleaning. I envy him sometimes.) So by 8:00 p.m., I’m exhausted, yet to be the “ideal woman”, I have to keep pushing myself so that my “candle goeth not out by night”. My husband and children go to bed, and to follow the scriptural principle of Proverbs 31:18, I stay up until my body aches from work and lack of rest and food and my eyes literally won’t stay open any longer. I know that I’ve worked the entire day, like it lays out in Proverbs 31, yet I still feel GUILTY about what I haven’t finished yet. Torn between the need for sleep and the need to get even more accomplished in the trailer, I finally fall asleep and before I know it, it’s 5:00 a.m. and the whole exhausting cycle starts all over again.

It seems to be according to these verses in Proverbs 31 that the ideal woman is up before dawn, works all day long, and then pushes herself to the point of exhaustion even after the sun goes down because she’s not allowed to go to bed. Eventaully, she gives in because her body is literally on the verge of collapse.

Could it be that I’m reading it wrong? I’d love to study my Bible, do further investigative reading, work on my music (I’m a gospel singer/songwriter. I feel that God has given me this talent so that I can eventually have my own music ministry and lead people to Christ through my songs, but Proverbs 31 has me busy literally the whole day and I can’t give myself permission to enjoy my music. I’d be eating the “bread of idleness”. God might not need sleep, food, or rest, but I sure do!) I study Proverbs 31 to find out the qualities of an “ideal woman”, but I doubt I’m physically fit enough to actually be one. Day by day, the restfulness of Heaven is looking better and better. I pray for the Rapture of the Church so that I can end this exhausting cycle. What’s your opinion of these verses? (By the way, it’s great to have found a verse by verse commentary of this passage of scripture. Thanks!)