“Strength and honor are her clothing, and she will laugh at the days to come.” Proverbs 31:25

This is the verse that I included when I would sign a book that I wrote a few years ago. I wrote this verse as a prayer, as a warning, and as a final piece of wisdom offered to ones who might read the book, written for parenting girls. The subtitle was “building strength, confidence, and integrity” and it took 225 pages to try to begin to offer advice on how to gain that. Proverbs 31 says it in just a few short verses. Today, I reflect on an integral part of that integrity found in just one verse repeated in the Book of Proverbs.

As I read this week with Bev’s Cover to Cover, I hadn’t realized the same verse was repeated over and over. I always laughed uncomfortably at it, thinking it was a strange thing, though I must admit I was somewhat convicted by it at the same time. Since these verses were sprinkled amid totally off-topic other proverbs, I had this vision of a wife popping in and interrupting Solomon’s other wisdom, and putting him in a bad mood. Solomon definitely had a theme going on this one. I don’t know if it was his wife or his concubine (and this is where Beth Moore always adds, “and might I say, one too many…”) that drove him crazy, but here’s what he said:

Proverbs 19:13
A foolish son is his father’s ruin, and a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.
Proverbs 21:9
Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs 21:19
Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
Proverbs 25:24
Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs 27:15
A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day;

Have you ever had a faucet that dripped constantly and it started to get to you? Chinese water torture comes to mind. I can just imagine how people went insane from the constant, inevitable next drop. The constant nagging of a woman is likened to it, as Solomon points out not once, but five times in Proverbs.

I hate to let some things go and must drive my husband crazy. Often I realize later that it wasn’t worth it to bring it up, and it wasn’t very mature to be so hard to please. I am not quick to overlook an offense as Proverbs 19:11 states. “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.” Overlooking an offense is a type of forgiveness, and requires a decision not to discuss it, dwell on it, or let it grow into anger or a bitter root. The decision to “let it go or let them know” starts with me, with a peaceful heart. This may sound trivial with all the other riches of wisdom we had this week, but this is where I am today—very aware of my own propensity towards being too particular and quarrelsome, and thus, disrupting the peace in my heart as well as others’.

I want to be forgiven, but know my forgiveness hinges on how I forgive. I continue to shortchange authentic Grace that He extends to me by not extending it to others. If this post was just for me this week, I am sorry. But to honestly examine one small thing in this deceptive heart perhaps is more sincere and nothing short of a small miracle as God and I work this one out. I feel a sense of renewed hope to cleanse with confession and start again, in His Strength, to do better for His Love’s Sake. Reading Scripture has a wonderful way of doing that. Hope you are well on your journey through His Word this week. As you seek Him, may you so find Him in the fullness and abundance of His Glory.