A day in the life of a not-so-Proverbs-31 woman

For the last few months, I've been going to a bible study at the home of my pastor and his wife on Thursday mornings. Ginger (the PW) has been doing a study on being a Proverbs 31 woman.

Can I just say, I am SOOOO not there yet?

I feel like every week I have a giant red glowing sign around my neck with the full bells and whistles that says, "I am not a good wife, I am not a good mom, I am not a good anything, I am here to be mocked and scorned."

Now, that's not to say that my lovely friend Ginger is doing or saying anything that should make me feel this way. Nor are any of the other sweet lil ladies that are in attendance.

I know it's just me and my own issues with being a stay at home mom.

The Proverbs 31 woman seems to me to be such an unattainable goal. I know, Beth Moore can do it. (Love you Beth!) But I'm telling ya what, it's truly a struggle for me to get out of bed somedays. For instance. our bible study was moved to Wednesday this week. So I got up bright and early, got the girls dressed and ready, then headed to Ginger's house. We left our house at  8:40, and arrived there around 9. The girls ran downstairs to play with the other kids while me and the other mamas stayed upstairs to study a new verse.
During our 30-45 minutes picking apart verse 17 to learn about how disciplined the P31 woman is, and how she gets up before the sunrise and goes to sleep after sundown and works in the fields and encourages her husband and praises her children and makes sure everything is in order and feeds her servants and buys fields with the money she makes from weaving whatever it was she wove and is a good steward of her money----  my kids came upstairs 7259 bazillion times. Another kid or 2 came up once or twice, but I spent the majority of the study as I have spent the others, running up and down stairs, trying to figure out what Miss Priss wants, or why she's screaming at her sister, etc, etc. This week I even dressed for exercise in my brown velvety pants and jacket with my good walking shoes. I knew how the morning would play out.

After we left Ginger's house, we went to the park. I had to kill a few minutes before it was time to take Boss lunch at work. We'd decided on Jersey Mikes, and there isn't one even remotely close to his work, so I had to stay in High Point. Lady M asked me 6 times in the 7 minute trip to the park, "aren't we supposed to be going to Jersey Mikes?", "Aren't we taking Dad lunch?", "Isn't Jersey Mike's that way?" "Why are we going this way? Aren't we supposed to take Dad lunch from Jersey Mike's??"

{There may be a small pile of my hair on the passenger's seat from the yanking and throwing that followed the questioning. I can neither confirm nor deny whether I actually have a new bald spot}

As we pulled into the park, I calmly stated, "Lady M, we have a little bit of time to kill between bible study and lunch, so I didn't want to drive home, then all the way back up here to go all the way back down to Asheboro to take lunch to Boss, so I thought this would be a nice way spend it."

We get to the playground and it is a mulchy muddy mess. Both of the girls have on boots, white long sleeve tees and jeans. By the time we left about thirty minutes later, we had wet nasty everything.

The park was a bad idea.

Miss Priss was screaming and crying, not ready to leave and not liking her wet mulchy clothes, and I was already a nervous wreck from feeling like a failure while reading Prov 31. We then went to Jersey Mikes, and when it came time to pay the woman behind the register asked, "Anything else for you?"

"Yes, if you have a few more arms and hands, that would be great," was my response.

She turned around and grabbed a giant box for me to put all of our food and drinks in. At least she somewhat got it.

We trucked down to Asheboro, where we had to eat in the van because of the Attack of Nasty Sugar Hungry Yellow Jackets. Needless to say our lovely lunch didn't last too long because no one likes to be stuck in a van that long.

After lunch, we kissed Boss goodbye, sent him back to work. I had to go by the Flowers bread store to get 200 hot dog buns for our church's Trunk or Treat on Saturday night. I left the girls in the van because I knew they would terrorize me with the treats in the bakery store. 17 bags of buns later, I'm back in the van, finally heading home.

As soon as I get in the door, my phone is ringing. It's my dear husband's sweet grandmother.

"Do you know where R is?" she asked.

{R is my father in law, not writing his whole name so people don't associate me with him. I mean, um, so I don't slander him with anything I write}

"No, I just drove by their house, his trucks were home, so I assume he is there."

Grandma: "Well, he was supposed to pick me up at 10 am and I've been trying to call him all morning but he isn't answering."  {It was almost 3 pm}

Me: "Hmm, well, I can try to call him for you if you want. "

Grandma: "That would be nice."

So I started calling, and calling and calling. My father in law does not believe in answering services or caller ID, even though he runs a garage from his home. So the phone rang, and rang and rang. I tried the garage phone, no answer there either.

I decided something bad may have happened because surely no son in his right mind would leave his 80+ year old mom at home without telling her why he couldn't come get her.

I went to his house {exactly one mile from my own}and banged on the door. No answer. I rang the doorbell. No answer. After trying to get some kind of response for 10 minutes, I was in the van AGAIN and on the phone to my hubby.

Boss of course thinks it's no big deal. He promises to keep trying to call him.

So I called Grandma back, and had no answer for her. She was so worried that something was wrong.

Twenty minutes later my phone rang. It was R, my father in law. His excuse was that a "customer came by this morning and I had to go look at his car."

I held my tongue, but my mind was yelling and screaming at him for being so insensitive to his precious mom.

I still had to make brownies, repair a halloween costume, make some documents for my sunday school teacher to go over when I got to church that night, take phone calls from my music minister to see if I've adequately recovered enough from pleurisy to sing tonight, get the girls ready for church, take a shower so I would be decent...

And this is just an example of a regular day in my life.

When do I have time to work willing with my hands, or choose fields, or bring food from afar, much less cleam my house, cook for my family, make sure the laundry is washed and ready to be worn, etc etc? And did you notice there was NO school lesson that took place?

So I have come to this conclusion...

I may not be a Proverbs 31 woman. I can't possibly juggle all of the things she juggled so perfectly. I may not have the most nutritious meal on my table every night, and my daugher may have to do her school lessons on her own somedays. My home decor may look a little less like Better Homes & Gardens, and a little more like a Toys'R Us catalog erupted on the floor, but I am still doing what I can to serve others. And in  doing so, I am serving God. Wednesday may not have been the best example of a clean heart in my serving, but I fully intend on asking the Holy Spirit to work on that.

Here's to my weekend of painting a giant piece of cardboard to look like an aquarium, going to Winston to see my brother, baking cookies, getting more stuff ready for the big kickoff to our sunday school November to Remember, dressing up Sarah Palin and my Tarheel cheerleader (who was a tarheel cheerleader 2 years ago but who's counting?), decorating the church for the Trunk or Treat, helping to set up the Sunday School bulletin board, making breakfast for the sunday school class, etc. I'm hoping I can have clean hands and a pure heart through it all.