GOOD

Today is another warm day, but it looks as if the heat will be breaking soon.  There have been many afternoons and early evenings when I have almost lost my resolve and turned on the AC.  There is a beautiful breeze right now and hopefully it will keep the trailer more tolerable this afternoon.  I will be cutting out a nightgown this afternoon for a growing niece.  The sewing may happen this weekend, but we'll just have to wait and see.  I have made a dent in freshening up the linens for my coming guests.  I think I only have a stack of towels left.  I think that I need to have company more often!

"teach the young women to be ... good"

The author describes "good" as an action.  An action that honors one's husband.  Proverbs 12:4 " A virtuous woman is  crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones."  The Bible promises that my actions can make my husband look good and bring him honor and respect or can cause him great shame.  If I had a lazy, or angry, or inattentive husband, my work could make him appear industrious and loving.  My faithful work could bring him honor.  On the flip side, if my husband is hard working and industrious, my frivolity and lack of attention to finances and the home can bring him shame by reflecting poorly upon him.  The author describes a "good" wife as ever learning and increasing in knowledge, as a hardworking helper rather than a hindrance, as virtuous, as active, as wise.  The world wants to portray a homemaker as weak, as pitiful, as lazy, as useless  ... but the "good" homemaker is actually busy, confident, capable, useful, and thankful.  How are you reflecting on your husband today?  Does your home convey peace and order?  Are you working with the children so that their obedience and honor is a reflection on your husband as a capable leader?  Are you attempting to lighten your husband's "honey-do" list by learning to do things yourself?  Are you reading books that just waste time or are you lost in the internet instead of reading books about health, gardening, home repair, child training, spiritual growth that will make you more useful in the home?  Are you wasting the money that your husband brings home or seeking to stretch every dollar by denying self and living frugally in the home?  I have to admit that the last one is the hardest for me ... It is easy to compare my home, my clothes, my car, my food with those of others rather than learning to take and use what I have to live within my means.

Good ... It is more than an adjective ... it is an active verb!