Struggling to be the Proverbs Woman

Honoring Mothers for Their Many Virtues

Happy Mother’s Day!

When I was asked to be the speaker for today’s program, I prayed to God “Lord give me a scripture ‘cause the last thing I want to talk about is the Proverbs woman. It’s so overdone. All the time I hear single men say, “I’m gonna find me a Proverbs woman,” and I’ve heard more than enough references to this biblical woman in my life. Quite frankly I’m tired of hearing about her because she’s just so darn perfect!

A couple of weeks ago Sue Hawkins called me to share the theme that was selected for today: “Honoring Mothers for Their Virtues” and, of course, I wanted to be obedient and speak along those lines, but God kept redirecting me back to Proverbs 31. When I sat down to write out my talking points for today, God directed me to 2 Samuel 22:31 to remind me that His word is flawless and although I may have thought I had something to say, there is something else that God wishes me to say. And because obedience is better than sacrifice turn with me to Proverbs 31:10 .

Although the Book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon, the latter part, especially Proverbs 31 has been attributed to King Lemuel who learned many things from his very wise mother. It’s interesting that these two very successful men-they were kings afterall- chose to compile what they knew about the virtues of a mother and a Godly woman.

We don’t know anything about King Lemuel’s mother other than she taught her son well, but we do know about King Solomon’s mother. You’ll remember her. Her name was Bathsheba and she was that adulterous woman who was up on the rooftop bathing and submitted to the sexual advances of a powerful man while her husband was away defending their country. Yea, that Bathsheba, King David’s lover who became his wife after she got pregnant and the king killed her husband. But I’m not going there now. We’ll come back to her. Let’s talk about sistah girl here in Proverbs.

She’s a virtuous woman.

She gets up before day.

She brings home the bacon, fries it up in the pan, and never ever let’s you forget you are a man—remember that commercial?

Anyway, she invests in real estate.

She’s eats organically because she has a garden that she feeds her family from.

She works out—her arms are strong

She sews and decorates her home

 She holds down a full-time sales job and she even has time to volunteer feeding the poor and helping the needy.
She helps her husband so that he is successful with his career and held in good esteem in their community.

Oh yea, and she doesn’t gossip. Ugh oh!

Whew! She exhausts me. I’m intimidated just reading this and I know that there are some women in this room who feel the same way if we were completely honest. It’s hard to measure up to her because she is just so…PERFECT!

It’s bad enough that every time we turn on the TV or pick up a magazine we see this ideal image of beauty that none of us measures up to. The world tells us that we have to be this tall and this thin and we must use this makeup or face cream. Wear this designer to be considered beautiful. We’re either considered a helicopter or dragon mother if we’re involved in our children’s lives or an absentee parent if we’re not involved enough. It seems the world is always judging us and then we turn to God’s word and there it is.

Proof that our biggest fear is true.

We don’t quite measure up to his ideal after all, we think.

We’re not the woman described here. How can we be? That’s just too much pressure.

We know deep down in our hearts we’re not her, but we keep trying and we keep striving and that’s what I want to talk about today.

Yes, we honor mothers today, we honor mothers for their virtues, but let’s first address the elephant in the room. You know that big topic that nobody wants to talk about.

Pastor I bet if you had the ability to read minds you would be let in on a dirty little secret that every woman in this room shares. If you asked one question and every mother had to answer it honestly I would wager that every mother in here would say the same thing: “Pastor, I’m tired.”
“I’m tired of trying to be all things to all people.”

“I’m tired of trying to make ends meet.”

“I’m tired of being the designated driver in life.”

“I’m tired of trying to make a way out of no way.”

“Don’t ask me to serve on another committee or do another thing because I can barely hold it together.”

She might turn to you and open up her Bible and point to chapter 31 and say “Pastor, I can’t keep up. I can’t be this woman.”

For many mothers, the best Mother's Day present would be to be left a lone for a while so she can rest.

When I was a little girl I would see my mother worrying about money. She would tell me “Shell-belle, we gotta make ends meet.” For the longest I thought ends meat was something you could actually make like pot roast or meatloaf. I didn’t get the rope metaphor. She was trying to hold it down by herself and at times it got tough. There was this one time when it was almost time to go back to school and I needed clothes and supplies and she had more month than she had money.

 She was a teacher and she was off for the summer so it would be a while before she got another paycheck. What she did was answer an ad in the newspaper requesting workers to work in a hose factory. “How difficult could that be?” she thought to herself, and she left me with my grandparents and she went off to her part time job. What she didn’t realize was that she wasn’t packing pantyhose in little egg containers, but she was hired to wrestle large metal hoses, the kind that get hooked up to machines, into huge cardboard boxes for shipping..

I saw my mother last weekend when she drove from Indianapolis to Chicago to attend a book event that I had. She told this story to some of the women there and we laughed until there were tears in our eyes. But it wasn’t funny all those years ago when she came home bleeding from the places where the metal hose had cut into her hands. She wasn’t laughing when she had no idea how she was going to make ends meet and she was desperate to do just about anything to put food in my belly, a roof over my head and clothes on my back. She didn’t feel like the Proverbs woman then, and as a matter of fact, this Proverbs woman was just one more painful reminder of how she didn’t measure up to God’s ideal.

But isn’t it wonderful when we look again at this scripture and realize that this is not a snapshot of her life. This is not what she tried to do at one time-- say on a Tuesday. This was her life over a period of time. From her youth to her old age,  and it is her fear of the Lord that enables her to do all of this over her lifetime.

I don’t mean shaking in your boots fear. I mean an understanding that God’s word will not return void. Let me explain. As a child I was afraid of my grandfather. Not that he was a mean man. He was actually very kind, but I understood that there were expectations of me and if I did not follow them then I would have to answer to him. This is the fear our Proverbs woman has. The understanding that God has an expectation for her to live up to all that she was created to be over the many seasons of her life.

As a teacher and a writer many of my students get confused when I mark up their papers because they’ve used the wrong verb tense when writing about literature. You see whenever you write about a character in a literary work, it is important to use the present tense. Although you’ve already read the story in the past, it might seem that you should use past tense verbs but that is incorrect. The reason is that the character in the story is always performing the action no matter when it’s read. For example, when you were in school and read Romeo and Juliet they were star crossed lovers and when your great-great grandchildren read the same story they will still be star crossed lovers. Hence the need for the present tense because the action in the story is always happening right now.

When we look back at our Proverbs woman we see that this ode is written in the present tense. She is doing it now, but not right now. Whether it was the year 12 or 2012. She is doing all of these things, but not all at once. That’s an important distinction.
Remember I told you I that the book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon whose mother was Bathsheba and that I would come back to her. Turn with me to 2 Samuel 12:11.

We all know the story of King David and Bathsheba. Here she was a married woman who submitted to the charms of a powerful married man. She stood by as her husband was killed and she was pregnant with another man's baby. What she and David thought they had gotten away with was discovered when Nathan reported that God was angry and that the baby would die. Yes, this scripture is told with King David as the protagonist, but we have to look deeper and see that Bathsheba was suffering, too. Finally after the baby dies, the word says that David comforted his wife and she got pregnant with another child whom they named Solomon.

I tell my students it’s important to read the whole book and that’s what we have to do here. The famous black playwright Lorraine Hansberry has a quote in her drama A Raisin in the Sun that says “if you’re going to measure a man, measure him right”. I think this applies to how we measure ourselves in comparison to this Proverbs woman. We need to measure ourselves right. We can’t continue to hold ourselves to an ideal that’s just not realistic. It’s like determining who won the race before it’s over.
If we were to take a snapshot of Bathsheba at this moment in time she was hardly a virtuous woman. She was anything and everything but that, but it was her son after all who compiled this book of the Bible. 

When we look back at this Proverbs woman, the line that speaks to me is give her the reward she has earned. Look around. There are women in here with some stories. If we took a snap shot of their lives at just one point each of them may not have been a virtuous woman who felt she was worthy of honor. When we look at ourselves we may realize all of the things we don’t do right and we feel that there is no way that we should be honored. We know how we've failed. But our ways are not God’s ways and if we measure a woman by His standards than we must measure her right.

We measure mothers because of their virtues and it is for this reason we honor them. We must first, however, understand what this word means. Because of our Puritan upbringing we assume virtuous means chaste or virginal, but we know Bathsheba’s story and she was neither of these. So maybe this word means a little more. 

A quick glance in the dictionary will tell you that virtue means uprightness, rectitude, it also means inherent powers. For example, by the virtue invested in me, and lastly it means because of. So I say today we honor the virtues of mothers… because of.

We honor them because of them going on when they were tired.

We honor them because of them taking care of us when we were unable to take care of ourselves.

We honor them because of their faith.

We honor them because they moved beyond the circumstances of their lives and created the best life they could for each of us.

We honor them because of…
And we turn again to this Proverbs woman, instead of feeling inadequate next to her. We see that she is a promise of all we can be if we keep living. She is a reminder that we are just what God said we are, “fearfully and wonderfully made”.

In closing, I want to share a story with you about a large temple in Thailand. In this temple there stood an enormous,  ancient clay Buddha. It wasn’t beautiful or even well crafted, it was just old. For over 500 years it had been revered because of its longevity sheer longevity. Violent storms, changes of government, and invading armies had come and gone but this statue had endured.
At one point, however, the monks who tended the temple noticed that the statue had begun to crack and would need repair. After a while one of the cracks became so wide that a curious monk took his flashlight and peered inside. Imagine his surprise when he realized that inside this old, ugly, broken down clay statue was the largest pure gold image of Buddha that exists in the world. What happened was that this shining work of art had been covered in plaster and clay to protect it during times of conflict and unrest and after a time people had forgotten that it was actually gold inside. They thought that what they saw everyday-the old  broke down clay statue- was really what it was.

Isn’t that our story? We get mired by the much and mess of life that we forget that we could possibly be worth anything. We think we don’t measure up and we don’t believe God’s word about us. But we’re gold underneath all this because we are, after all, made in His image.

And it’s that goldness that goodness that we celebrate today. It is your virtue we honor. We honor you because of….Happy Mother’s Day,  Proverbs women!

Sister Showdown in Grocery Store

Y'all I almost lost my Zen this afternoon in Wal-Mart. It wouldn't have been pretty either. You see I was waiting in the checkout line and this woman rolled up on me and gave me colossal attitude. Although I can't remember exactly what she said, I do know the tone was nasty and I envisioned myself snatching her by her mangy hair and beating her to a bloody pulp right there by cashier #3. I was truly about to set it off in Wal-Mart! Of course I would have had to call my husband to bail me out of jail and I know my children would have laughed unmercilessly for the next fifty years and without a doubt someone would surely include the story in my eulogy, shaming me even beyond the grade.  So instead of beating her, I took several deep breaths and tried to calm myself down.

Even as I was walking toward my car I was angry. Inwardly I was hoping I would see her in the parking lot so I could give her a piece of my mind, but then I had a thought: Maybe her day had been like mine. Maybe she was just as tired as I was and still needed to go home and cook dinner. Perhaps she was short on cash and was trying to figure out a way to go home and explain to her family that she just didn't have enough money to get what they needed. Maybe she was in pain, physical or emotional, or maybe she was just mean.

Could it have been that she felt blue because every magazine on both sides of the checkout lane touted all of the ways she was inferior? Not sexy enough, not young enough, not thin enough, therefore, not good enough. Whatever the case was I know I needed to feel love and compassion for her. Somehow. But I didn't. Not at first. But eventually that little spark ignited in my heart and I felt that she was my sister. No we are not related biologically, nor do we share the same race or socio- economic status. We may or may not belong to the same religion or political party, but we are the same gender and sisters need to remember how to stick together. I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing women on reality television disrespecting each other. Worse yet, I'm tired of seeing it in real life. I'm tired of the cattiness, the backbiting, and the unnecessary attitude. I'm often left dumbfounded asking myself where is the love?

We women are so beautiful. We are creative, intuitive, nurturing, and always hopeful. When did we stop encouraging each other, choosing instead to tear each other down insult by insult? Hurtful act by hurtful act. At what point did we lose compassion for each other, forgetting to understand that the load is not spread equitably, so sometimes we may need to help our sister out by carrying it for a while or speaking life to her as she struggles beneath it.

 Recently, while teaching a lesson on connotation and denotation I asked my students to list all of the words they could think of to describe a woman. Easily we came up with nearly fifty words and most of them were negative. Why is that?

I'm glad I didn't beat the poor lady in the store although it would have made for good TV. Can't you just see the security camera video? Instead I'm celebrating her for all that she is as a woman and I'm choosing to call her by her name: mother, daughter, sister, aunt, grandmother, cousin, friend.

Be a Tree

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." (Psalms 1:3-4)

Lately I've been thinking about trees. I realize this may sound crazy, but I'm now beginning to realize that in order to really appreciate life I must learn to be a tree. Trees, you'll notice, bend with the force applied towards them. They lean into the storm and never try to resist. Those trees that hold rigid are soon uprooted and cast aside and forgotten, while those that surrender to the elements remain rooted for years. I'm now only starting to see that when I am faced with an obstacle, I don't need to fight back. I can just be still and let the attack pass. When I try to fight in my own strength, I always fail. I am exhausted and discouraged and I usually don't win because resisting is futile. It is when I surrender and allow the forces to blow about me that I'm victorious. How silly it would be for a tree to throw up it's branches and attempt to fight the wind, yet I try to fight my own squalls with feeble attempts.

Although I've always been fascinated by trees, I've never really stopped long enough to think about how they symbolize all of the lessons that I need to learn in my life. It's true. I've felt most comfortable around trees. When I was a child, I would spend all of my free time in the woods behind my house. I got such comfort from the green sanctuary and have always felt closest to God when I'm near his creation. Just like Jessie in The Other Side of Through, I have found my own way in life whenever I've made my way to a wooded path. There is just something about trees that make me feel safe, protected and a part of creation. Through the years, I've complained about living in Florida and it wasn't until recently that I realized what it is about Florida that I don't like: It's the fact that, for the most part, I don't have access to the huge, towering trees of my childhood. Trees whose limbs I could climb in or whose leafy branches I could sit beneath. Trees that bore fruit that I could reach up and grab. Filling my mouth with the very taste of God. Yes, many of you will argue that Florida has trees, but, in my opinion, it's not the same sitting beneath a palm tree or a citrus tree.

Trees truly are symbols to help guide me--no, all of us-- in life. Almost every major religion and faith uses the tree as a symbol of humanity and creation. The Bible, The Qur'an and other sacred books speak of The Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Good and Evil. This tree, whose branches reach up toward the sky, connect the heavens to the earth. It is the fruit from the tree that represents the choices we make-- some better than others--but we always have the freedom to make those choices. Like trees, we are constantly growing. I am not speaking of the growth spurts we have as we move from infancy to childhood or childhood to adolescence, rather the growth we make as we live our lives in an attempt to truly live and to finally get it right. I believe God put trees on earth to remind us of these lessons.

Scientists say that they can tell the age of a tree by counting it's annual rings, but more importantly they can read between the lines of those annual rings to discern even more information. They can learn the climate of the area, whether or not there was sufficient rainfall, and they can learn about parasites and other trauma that the tree may have sustained. Isn't that the same in our lives? We can look at the beautiful faces of people who have lived through some stuff, but we can also read between the lines. We can learn so much from laugh lines and furrowed brows.

The most obvious symbol is that trees bear fruit. It may be an apple, an orange, an olive or a pomegranate. It may not actually be something we eat, like an acorn or a pine cone, but trees produce something. Just like the tree, each of us is producing something in our lives that is meant to sustain someone else. Is the fruit that you're producing helping someone grow as you are growing? Are the trees you're eating from yourself sustaining you or is it time to do some pruning in your life? Do you need to cut back those areas that are not producing what you need or perhaps you need to feed from another vineyard or orchard.

So, as I sit beneath my favorite tree and write this, I realize that I must be a tree and stay planted near all that sustains me so that I can produce fruit at the appointed time that helps someone else.

I Can't Change the Outcome, Only My Outlook

There for a moment I took hit after hit from a series of unfortunate events. It seemed that as soon as I recovered from one blow, life took another swing and once again I was knocked to my knees. Over and over again I called out to God "What is the lesson?" and of course my pleas were met with silence. So many times I needed a burning bush moment and all I heard were crickets in the midst of the silence. I was desperate for some answers because I wanted to hurry up and learn the lesson so I wouldn't keep repeating the same painful experiences. Finally while journaling one morning I had an epiphany. It seemed that all of my bad luck could be grouped into one category: lack. I never seemed to have enough of something. Whether it was money, time, energy, faith, my tank was always running on empty. That's an easy fix I reasoned, so I changed how I thought about what I had. I began to show gratitude and appreciation for what I was given even if I felt I needed more. I was confident that I had learned the lesson and then I received a one two punch that didn't knock me on my knees. Instead I landed flat on my back.
I was devastated. Shouldn't I be able to move on if I understood the problem? I was a good student, I reasoned, why couldn't I proceed to the next life lesson? Finally God spoke to me, but it wasn't the larger than life Morgan Freeman voice that I expected. It was a still small voice that sounded very much like my own. "Michelle," it whispered, "how are you reacting when you don't have enough?"
Aha! It wasn't that I didn't understand the principle of gratitude, it was that any time I was faced with a problem I would freak out. I would go into a full tailspin until I figured out a way to fix the problem. What all of those setbacks were showing me was that I needed to change my reaction to the bad event. There was nothing I could do to change the event itself because bad things happen and that's just a part of life, but I could change my reaction!
As you know, I am a teacher, so I feel compelled to teach those things that I have learned. I'm by no means declaring that I've learned all of life's lessons, but I have learned this one and I want to make sure you learn it too. Here's the lesson: There is nothing you can do to change a bad event in your life, but you can change how you react to it. If someone cuts you off in traffic, smile. If your pay check is too small, smile. If your lover leaves you, smile. If you burn dinner, smile. It's all good so count it all  joy.

Never Let A Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You and Other Lessons Learned

Former talk show host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey always finds a way to ask the signature question "what do you know for sure?" to the high profiled guests she interviews. This has me thinking about the lessons I've learned through my own experiences or by bearing witness to the pain of others close to me. These are the things that  I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be true. I apologize in advance for the crude way I've worded some of these lessons, but life doesn't sugarcoat it when it's being taught, so I'm not going to try to make it sound fancy.

Lesson One: Never Let a Fool Kiss You or A Kiss Fool You
Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss and there is absolutely no emotion behind it. A kiss is not a commitment or a promise and it's important to learn how to separate the two. All too often people,especially women, put too much meaning into gestures that are just that, gestures. Even worse is that we allow people access to our bodies without knowing exactly what kind of person they really are. It's not always the love making that means anything, but the person's non-sexual actions that show where his or her heart really is. Furthermore, it takes time to really get to know someone and physical contact can cloud judgment.  The bottom line is don't kiss (or have sex with) someone who you are unsure about. Take sometime to really get to know them before the intimacy. If you've decided to wait until marriage, perfect, but if you haven't, my advice is to slow down and make sure that the person wants you and not just that part of you and also be absolutely sure you want them.

Lesson Two: Don't Give It All Away
No, I'm not referring to that age old question "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?" What I'm suggesting is that we learn to give from our abundance. Through the years I've seen others, and I've been guilty myself, of giving what they don't have. Like so many, I've volunteered my time and my energy when my body, mind and spirit needed rest. I've given above tithes and offerings for the "whatever fund" and then worried if my bills were going to get paid. What I've learned is that it is important to give, but we also have to give to ourselves. We have to make sure that we make ourselves as much of a priority as anyone else. If we need something, then we deserve it. Please hear me because I am not talking about material things nor am I promoting selfishness. What I am proposing is that we take care of our emotional, spiritual, physical and fiscal needs before giving it all away. You can't give what you don't have so stop trying.

Lesson Three: If You Haven't Given Birth to Me, Married Me or Financed Me, Then Your Opinion of Me Doesn't Really Matter
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way I stopped trying to please everybody. Of course I'm concerned with what my mother, husband, children and employers think about the public choices I make, but other than that I really don't care. Through the years I spent a great deal of my time hoping that people would like me. I tried to always be agreeable and polite and bent over backwards to accommodate other's needs. Unfortunately, there were people who didn't like me because of the way I looked, the car I drove, the way I spoke or whatever and there was absolutely  nothing I could do to please them. So I stopped. If someone likes you, great. If they don't, two tears in a bucket...I wouldn't suggest that you upset your mother, your children, your spouse or employer by your words or actions, but I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about what others think. Everyone has an opinion about you, and it's just that-an opinion. And like noses everyone has one.

Lesson Four: Chocolate Really Can Make Things Better
If I'm sad, chocolate will lift my spirits. I don't care if it's dark, white or milk, Hershey's or Godiva it  makes me happy. On those occasions when I feel sorry for myself I consume as much chocolate as I want. Sometimes it's Hagen Daz chocolate ice cream and other times it's chocolate covered peanuts. Regardless, it's the adult equivalent of a pacifier and it comforts me for a while. Thankfully, this doesn't happen often. Otherwise I would be obese. Also, when others are sad, I've found that a piece of chocolate can brighten their day.

Lesson Five: You Can Tell A lot About a Person by the Way They Speak to the Help
People can put on their best manners when talking to the Chairman of the Board or the most important guest in the room, but do they value the person who cleaned the toilet, mowed the grass or cooked the food? People who are only impressed by titles always let their true colors show when they have to deal with anyone who they deem as unimportant. I avoid these fake people at all costs because they're opportunists. They don't care about the individual's worth, only their net worth.

Lesson Six: Trust But Verify
U.S. President Ronald Regan often used this phrase when discussing the tense U.S.-Soviet relationship in the 1980s. Like President Reagan, I want to believe what people tell me, but I've learned that if I don't verify what people tell me as "truth" then shame on me. It's my responsibility to discover the truth for myself.

Life is full of lessons, but these are the first seven. Thankfully I'm still learning.

Pen-demonium: Happy Birthday to Me (And if You Add Another Candl...

Pen-demonium: Happy Birthday to Me (And if You Add Another Candl...: Driving home from Orlando today I returned a phone call from my longest and dearest friend, Natalie. She'll appreciate that I didn't say old...

Happy Birthday to Me (And if You Add Another Candle I Swear I'll Kill You)

Driving home from Orlando today I returned a phone call from my longest and dearest friend, Natalie. She'll appreciate that I didn't say oldest because that was, after all, the topic of our conversation. She and I will both be celebrating birthdays this month and as we joked, it seems like just yesterday we were 4.

Now don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to be celebrating my 44th birthday on Monday! I'm healthy, I'm happy and I have the love of family and friends, which truly makes me wealthy. But damn. How did I get to be middle aged? Seriously, it seems like just yesterday I was trying to decide what I was going to wear to Prom and whether or not I wanted to have children when I grew up. But grow up I did, and two children later, I try not to be angry when my daughter sashays in front of me in a bikini with her perfect little body and comments on some imperfection of mine. Doesn't she realize my body looks like this because of HER!!!

How is it that I now have a career and a mortgage and very adult responsibilities, but I don't feel grown up at all? Of course I feel mature, but I don't remember actually growing up. I remember all of the milestones...the first kiss, the first time I drove a car on my own, my first date, my first college party, and the list goes on, but I honestly don't remember the passage of time. Was I so busy doing life that I missed it?

Other than the occasional gray hairs that insist on raising their fists in victory along my hairline, and the tiny lines that are slowly creeping around my eyes, I don't really see the passage of time when I look in the mirror. I see it instead when I look at my loved ones. I see it at family gatherings: The adults who once sat me at the children's table are now the ones whose food I have to cut in small pieces so they can chew it easily.  I see it my children who speak such words of wisdom about things they see happening in the world and how they wish to make a difference. So full of youthful indignation and optimism they are!  I see it also when I meet up with friends who I have not seen in a while and the passage of time is clearly written across their faces, and I'm sure they see it on mine.

Although I joke about growing older and watching my youth fade, I am truly grateful for every birthday because it means that I've spent another year on this earth learning more about what it means to be human. I honestly don't mind that I'm no longer 24 (or 34 for that matter) because I am finally at a place in my life where I love me! Imperfections and all! I'm old enough not to take myself too seriously and to understand that every day is a gift.

On Monday, there will be cake and lots of well wishes, too. I am sure I will receive phone calls and texts and birthday messages on Facebook and Twitter. Most likely there will be gifts, but there isn't really anything I want other than to be able to appreciate -truly experience-every day of my 44th year!