The ever industrious woman of Proverbs 31 “rises while it is yet night and provides . . . portions for her maidens.”
Whenever I have heard talks on this, the focus has been on the ‘rises while it is yet night’ part but my focus tends to run to the maidens.
Wouldn’t that be amazing to have handmaidens at my beck and call to do the work?!
That’s when I realized I did.
For example, dishes and I have always had a love/hate relationship.
I love having them done. I hate doing them.
One day I was washing a particularly aggravating stack of procrastination dishes and mumbled to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great if there was a box that I could put these in and just push a button and they would come out clean? Oh, yea, someone already did that. I think it’s called a dishwasher.”
I have a dishwasher now and am very fond of this handmaiden. She sits quietly in the kitchen in no one’s way and as we go through our day we give her all the dirty dishes. At the end of the day, we give her some soap and turn her on. It is comforting to hear her humming gently to herself as she goes about her work.
Two other handmaidens I have are sisters. They sit quietly next to each other in a little room of their own that has a door because they tend to go at their work rather boisterously.
One sister takes all the dirty clothes of the house, floods them with water, chugs them around, and even twirls all the water out of them.
When she is done, I give the damp clothes to her sister, who tumbles them around until they’re dry. That one makes a distinct yell when she is done. It seems she really doesn’t like the clothes to be in there longer than necessary.
I have several that just cook and they are always vying for the job – one cooks really slow, one cooks really fast, one simmers and roasts, and one likes to grill outside.
My handmaidens wake me up, make coffee, play music, clean carpets, print in fonts I could never do by hand, heat water that goes throughout the house, keep me cool, and it goes on and on.
An organized woman doesn’t ignore her handmaidens.
Give them work to do.
Keep them happy.
Then you can sit with your feet up, read a book, drink something cold, while listening to your handmaidens diligently at work.
And feel like an industrious woman.