Until about a month ago, I had never sewn more than a single stitch in my life. But I wanted to learn because I read this verse, and I needed to be like the P31 woman.
So I am working on my first quilt--with my mother’s help (praise God for my mother!) But, my roommate said something that stuck with me, “I hope you aren’t learning how to sew just because the P31 worked with wool and flax?”
Friends, right then I saw the arrogance and pride in me.
You may be a fantastic seamstress that makes beautiful clothes for yourself and your family. I’m not that person. You may love to design curtains and napkins that make your home look amazingly stylish. Not me. In fact, I recruit friends like you to sew my projects.
Thankfully, this look into the P31 woman is not about her ability to sew and spin. The words "distaff" and "spindle"--two words foreign to my vocabulary--reveal the diligence and industriousness of the P31 woman.
If one truly desires to learn to sew, by all means, please do. I guess that knowing how to thread a needle and sew a button are important skills, though I am not even great at those. In fact, I remember standing in a co-worker’s office just a year ago while she taught me how to sew a loose button onto the blazer I was wearing. We got a good laugh about that one.
Ultimately spindle knowledge is not the core of this verse.
The bigger picture here is seen throughout the whole of the P31 passage. This woman used her time wisely and diligently. I don't think she wasted much of it at all, which convicts me. I want the Lord to impress her ways upon me.
Let me leave you with this. As you read the ways of the P31 woman this month, you may be like me and get a little discouraged. You may think, "I will never be like her!" You may battle your early-am-alarm-clock-snooze-button-hitting syndrome, or your ability to burn everything you put in the oven, or the fact that you don’t even know what a feather duster is, or why you would need 409.
But…we have a Jesus that shed His blood on the cross for us. As believers, may we never get over the Gospel. May we press further into and pursue it daily. Even if our flesh could live out the ways of this P31 woman perfectly, we would still fall so short of God's glory.
My hope is that we would live strong in the Gospel. That we would daily take up our cross and follow Him. That we would allow the Gospel to saturate every hour of our lives--whether fumbling with a needle or going to the alteration shop.
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Thank you, Kim! I am so comforted with the reminder that the stack of clothes in my laundry room needing minor alterations (and being continually avoided by me!) does not reflect on my stance as a P31 woman.
Love the picture, by the way!
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