The Good Wife

I want to be a good wife, really, I do! But then I find myself selfishly wanting my own way, griping, criticizing my husband, getting bitter, etc. I stomp around, shut cabinet doors loudly, and fill our home with negative words. Not my finest moments. And even when I'm not overtly being a sinner, when I'm really trying to be "good," there's just the burdens of who I am: my sensitivities, my need for routine, my anxieties, a job that takes a lot out of me, etc. All I want is to be a blessing to my husband, and in my self-assessment, I am anything but that.

Proverbs 31 sets forth some pretty high standards for the Christian woman. The Proverbs 31 woman is "all that" and change. She blesses her husband. She works. She tends to her family. She cares for the poor. She praises the Lord. Her children bless her at the gate. Proverbs mentions none of her faults, if she even had any (what woman doesn't, though?), meanwhile I am over here stacking up a list of sins to heaven. How could I ever be a "good wife," let alone compare to this lady?

I read a different verse about being a wife in Proverbs recently, though, one that caught me off guard. "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord" (Proverbs 18:22, New International Version [NIV]). Really? A wife is good? A wife brings her husband favor? Well, maybe not this wife. I am not exactly a treasure, and that is my own judgment of myself! As I read the commentary, though, I became convicted.

"God brought together the first husband and wife."

Well, God did bring together my husband and I. I fully believe that!

"God gave marriage between a man and woman as a gift to humanity."

Marriage is a gift to me, I mean my husband is a gift to me. I just don't know about the statement in reverse.

"For a wife, though she be not the best of her kind, is to be esteemed a blessing, being useful both for society of life...and for the mitigation of a man’s cares and troubles, and for the prevention of sins.” (Poole, as cited in Guzik, 2017).

A wife is supposed to have a purpose. Fulfilling her purpose is what makes her a blessing.

"Marriage, with all its troubles and embarrassments, is a blessing from God; and there are few cases where a wife of any sort is not better than none" (Clarke, as cited in Guzik, 2017).

Having a wife is better than no wife? Really? Sometimes I feel like my husband would be better off without me. I mean, we got married later in life, and he did pretty well without me. But this suggests commentary suggests something different, that even if I am a "bad wife," I might bright my husband some good.

"God said that it was not good that be alone. His gift of Eve to Adam was a demonstration of God’s favor, and He still gives that gift of favor."

Okay, Lord, maybe the position of wife is good, even if by nature, the wife is not good.

"The wording, especially in the Heb., strikingly resembles that of Proverbs 8:35, and so suggests that after wisdom itself, the best of God’s blessings is a good wife" (Kidner, as cited in Guzik, 2017).

Second only to wisdom? Come on, now! That's a pretty high honor! Maybe there is something to this!

I am not a good wife, at least not on my own. I am a sinner to the nth degree. Jeremiah 17:9 affirms that: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" But God says marriage is good. God says having a wife is good. It is all there in the Scripture, so I had better start believing it. And by God's grace and the Holy Spirit's regenerative power, maybe I can slowly start acting like it, overcoming my sin nature to become what God intends me to be, not a good wife, but a wife who is good for her husband. A wife who is what her husband needs, according to God's assessment and design, and not her own.