Parenting lecture leads to insight???

Vocabulary has entered the realm of my home in a much bigger way this year!

All week long my 6th grade daughter has moaned and griped and complained about her vocabulary homework. Sentences, antonyms, synonyms, parts of speech.. the whole 9 yards. She became confident in her knowledge of the definitions of words like besieged, dispatched, libel, gainful, forsake, recede, repast, irk, inept, ingenious…she was “ready” for the test on Friday. But she rolled her eyes at all the amounts of homework over the week, sure that it was all unnecessary since she already knew what the words “meant”.

and the Lord works in mysterious ways….

Then, Thursday night, she got hurt, sliced a few layers of skin from her knee in a bicycle accident, and was unable to attend school on Friday. (open wound scenario not a good mix with a school with unknown bacteria floating around!!)  I spoke with her teacher and she assured me she would allow her to take the vocabulary test on Monday. Well, then we get word from my daughters friends over the weekend that this test was not like any other vocabulary test they’ve ever had! This test was all about finding antonyms, synonyms, parts of speech!!! There was NO “matching words to definitions” like they all expected.

As I tried to explain to my daughter that perhaps her teacher was trying to prepare her for this exact test all week long. Perhaps her teacher was actually helping her out by assigning all that “unnecessary homework”. Perhaps her teacher knew what was coming all along.

And a light bulb went off in my head as the words were still moistening my lips.

How often do I question and complain about the various trials in my own life? How often do I think “this is ridiculous.. why on earth is this happening? And forget that I have a VERY WISE and LOVING Father in heaven who KNOWS what’s up ahead for me, and what lessons I need to learn before reaching that future?

How can I can encourage my daughter to trust her teacher, and then fail at trusting the Lord with being my teacher?

I saw how my daughter believed she “knew enough” and believed that she was “good enough”.

And I see how we do the same with our own lives. And I’m humbled and repentant. I don’t know better than Him… just as my daughter doesn’t know better than her teacher. I don’t know enough to get by or have the right answers for future tests until I’ve completed each task the Father assigns me today.

Using the vocabulary words we studied this weekend,,

I am totally inept, and will forsake my own understanding and expressly denounce my misgivings. I will look towards the ingenious and immensely all knowing God with complete trust that his purposes for me are gainful in the long run.

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future”

Pr31IRL=Proverbs 31 In Real Life

Since my blog title comes directly from Proverbs 31 (the message translation), I want to spend one post a week on how I am attempting to live out life as a Godly woman in today’s world. Proverbs 31:10-31 is a wonderful description of a “noble wife”. However, I have also found many other mentions of good women throughout Proverbs. Today I was skimming through the word, on my way to really focus on Proverbs 31, when I felt the Lord drawing me into Proverbs 19:14, it reads:

Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.

At first glance, this verse didn’t seem all that important to me, but then I began to study what the word “prudent” means. Using my Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance, I found that in most instances when the word prudent is used in the Bible it simply means “wise and understanding”. But, in this particular verse, the Hebrew word used is different. In this particular verse, the word prudent comes from a Hebrew word that means,

“to have success, insight, understanding, wisdom; the potent capacity to understand and so exercise skill in life, a state caused by proper training and teaching enhanced by careful observation”

And suddenly, this simple verse seems important to my desire to be a good wife. I cannot settle with just being “wise and understanding”. I must ask the Lord to teach me and train me and provide me with the capacity to understand all that he wishes to teach. I must also seek insight and pass along the proper training I have recieved onto my children.

Becoming a prudent wife is much greater a goal than passing on houses and wealth.

So, as I begin my own personal study and application of becoming a Proverbs 31 wife (Pr31IRL) in real life, I must begin back in Proverbs 19 with the understanding that I must first become prudent… and I can only become prudent through the Lord.

I hope you will join me in asking the Lord to teach us through the example of his son Jesus Christ, to have success, insight, understanding and wisdom, and exercise skill in life!

Please leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!