 You've listened so much, you probably don't even need another talk, we could just go right to mass, but since I said yes, I will go ahead and obey and give this talk and hopefully there will be something important for you. Nothing can make us feel more vulnerable than having a child. When you get birth, you look at this child and you see the potential, and you know your weaknesses, you know how much you will fail. And yet this is God's design, just as it's God's design that the gospel would spread through this ragtag group of 12 disciples. We can't take all the credit, though we can be very pride-filled with all their accomplishments, and we can't take all the blame for the mistakes and the challenges that they represent, but there are principles that can guide us, and what I want to do, I don't like the title I came up with because it makes it seem like just parent like the Hans, and you too will be successful, and it's like, oh my gosh, I never meant to say that. What I do want to say is there is wisdom that we can glean, we can share with each other, and as we walk together with our families, the goal is heaven. So parenting is more about wisdom than it is law, and I just want to share some of the ideas from Proverbs 31. Proverbs 31 is my favorite piece of wisdom literature. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Proverbs 31. 35 years ago it began as a simple Bible study because I wanted to understand better what it meant to be a wife and mom, and now it's four books and a 24-week Bible study on DVD, and my hope and prayer is that we will share this wisdom together and keep growing in that vocation of marriage. These are the instructions that a queen mother gave to her son, King Lemuel. She wanted to outline the qualities he needed to look for in a wife, and she knew that her son would be tempted to think of a wife as one more thing, collecting prized objects, collecting man-servants and maid-servants, collecting jewels. Why not collect a wife? And she's saying, no, no, no, this is much more rare. I want you to set your standards high, to seek this woman diligently and select her carefully because your future wife will not only make the difference in your life, but even in the well being of your kingdom. Unlike anything else that you will receive from God, your wife will make the difference. So we begin in verse 10. It says, a good wife who can find she is far more precious than jewels. It's not about just finding someone who's virtuous because there are virtuous people who are not Christians. Virtue is important, but it's not enough. This woman has to be a good wife, meaning a godly wife. She's somebody who understands herself as a daughter of the king of kings before she becomes the wife of the king. And if you just hold your place here, but turn the page to the last, well, one of the last verses, verse 28, sorry, 30. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. It's a woman who values interior beauty rather than exterior beauty. And she lives her priorities and we're going to look at those. Gaining the praise of others, her husband, her adult children. And a good wife is a godly wife, a woman with a heart for God. And so this first step in the principles of parenting is before I approach my children, I need to see myself as a child of God. I need my relationship with God. And this woman who has a fear of the Lord is not in servile fear like a slave, but in the awe and reverence of a child for her heavenly father. And then that leads right to the second step, which is to choose a godly spouse. Again, we'll get to the children, but this is so important. And it's important for us to take to our hearts and realize this is something, if you already are married and have children, this is something to communicate to your children and your grandchildren, your nieces and your nephews. Nobody gets married to fail. So we have to give them the tools for success. And that means knowing God and choosing a spouse who knows God. Proverbs 26 and 7 says, Many a man proclaims his own loyalty, but a faithful man who can find a righteous man who walks in in his integrity, blessed are his sons after him. So like the woman, it's like a precious jewel who can find this godly wife. Likewise, a faithful man, a man of integrity is a rare gem to be valued to thank God for. And like the man of God, the woman of God, each there to be seen as precious, more precious than jewels. Now in verse 11, it says of 31, the heart of her husband trusts in her until have no lack of gain. I wish I could fully unpack just that verse. In fact, I have two Bible studies based on that verse. The first half, the heart of her husband trusts her. And the second, he'll have no lack of gain. And I go through how many different areas of life is it's a plus to have this godly woman. But I'm going to have to keep things really brief today. The heart of her husband trusts in her. Look at Proverbs 18 22, if you if you can turn back to it. He will finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. A man gains favor or grace from God when he finds a godly wife. The way my father put it is Kimberly, you are going to be the primary channel of grace to Scott. And Scott, you are going to be the primary channel of grace for Kimberly. Now that's from my father who's a Presbyterian pastor in the church. When we came into the church, we understood this as being the primary path of sanctity. That channel of grace, a good husband is a godly husband, a man with a heart for God. And this man that she's appealing to, her son, should value a woman who has a heart for God because he has a heart for God. He can trust his heart to someone who entrusts herself to God. And likewise, she can trust herself to someone who has entrusted himself to God. Now, step three, principle three, embrace God's beautiful design for marriage. In verse 12, it says, she does him good and not harm all the days of her life. I talk a little bit about this with our unmarried youngest son. We have three children who are married, Michael, Gabriel and Hannah. And together they have 18 grandchildren. And the next two, Jeremiah and Joseph have been called to the vocation of priesthood and they're both studying for our diocese. But David is the unknown. David is funny and he's not sure where he is called yet. But even now, he can do good. He can make choices and not harm a future spouse, how? By choosing chastity before marriage, by keeping himself pure. And then he's open to whatever vocation God has for him. And then we're called to chastity within marriage, faithful and exclusive love. And we're called to openness to life in marriage. Turn to Genesis one. We've got to remember marriage is God's idea. It isn't something we came up with and it's not something as Americans we can redefine. God didn't create man because he was bored. He didn't create man because he was lonely. God himself is a communion of life-giving lovers and life-loving givers. The father pouring himself into the son, the son pouring himself back into the father and the bond of love between them. So real and powerful that it constitutes not a feeling of love but the person of the Holy Spirit. And it is this communion of life-giving lovers that created man and woman in his image. Look at verse 27 of the first chapter, or 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish, the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every living creeping thing that creeps upon earth. And so God made man in his image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. So God called us into existence to image him and he didn't just create Adam and Eve, he created them and then he blessed their union, their marriage. We read it in 28. God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish and the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. God called man and woman to image him in their marriage so that the two would become one and the one they become, as my husband says, is so real, nine months later you might have to give it a name. It constitutes a third person in this family. Now you might say, well, okay, that's the command and the blessing that God gave in the Garden of Eden, but that's before sin entered the world and when sin entered the world, everything changed. And so of course today, God couldn't expect us to be pursuing this, not in this world, but if you look carefully after the flood, after the fall in the Garden, after the flood, God restates this exact same blessing command to Noah and his family to be fruitful and to multiply. In a wedding vow, not only does the couple commit to lifelong union, but they have to answer the question, will you receive children lovingly from the Lord? God enables our bodies to speak his life-giving language of love. And we need to remember that this gift is from him, this powerful gift, and it is to be used for his honor and glory in the right way. Every act of marriage is an act of covenant renewal, becoming that one flesh, unveiling what God has allowed us to unveil, receiving each other. The womb is like a sacred vessel set apart for consecrated use. It's like the man is the high priest entering the Holy of Holies and he enables the womb to become a living tabernacle. So we approach each other with awe and reference. I don't know if you ever catch this, but there are times where I watch something on television and people are so casual about the act of marriage and I think as a 61 year old woman married for 40 years, I can tell you, you have no clue what sex is. You have no clue what it is to be loved more deeply than ever before. My body is a road map. I mean, I have got c-sections I had side to side and then I had c-sections upside up and down. I remember when the doctor told me that he had done the c-section a new way and I was like, why? But he had needed to get into my daughter was transverse lie and so he had to cut it another way to get the baby out and he said, but look at it this way. It's like an anchor. That's what I always wanted to see in the mirror, you know. But my husband assures me that he thinks it'll be on my resurrection body because it's a wound I have borne for Christ. We only have a certain amount of time. We can serve our Lord in this way. Out of our whole life, how long are we married? Out of our married life, how often are we even able to conceive? We have only been open to life since we came to a conviction against contraception a year and a half into our marriage. We only have conceived nine times. We only had the privilege of bringing into this world six children and that was being absolutely totally open to life all the time. God has a plan and so when we yield ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as Curtis was challenging us to do, that includes our fertility. You know, we want to love God with all our heart, our mind, our soul, our strength and he's like, and your fertility. It's a gift. It's a powerful gift and we need to bring it into service to our Lord. What a privilege to image God as life-giving lovers and life-loving givers. Whoops, that's not a good thing. Okay. Psalm 127, 3-5 says this. Low sons are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hands of the warrior are the sons of one's youth, happy as the man whose quiver is full of them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gates. I mean, I just want you to catch this witness and I want to say at the outset, Mary and Joseph had one child. Okay. It's not about numbers. I remember when my sister called, I just delivered Jeremiah our number four and my sister called with a new she was expecting number five and Gabriel looked at me and he said, we're losing. I said, no, we just gained a niece or nephew. We're all winning. Okay. We're all winning. So it's not about numbers, but I got to tell you what a tremendous witness we have in Curtis and Michael Anne with the nine children that they are raising and there have been others who have been lost and Ted and Beth three with the eight children they are raising and other children they have lost. These are beautiful witnesses. You don't have to be super wealthy. You don't have to be super sufficient to be able to say yes to God. He will give you the grace you need. St. John Paul said this, the sanctity of marriage enables a family to become a sanctuary of life. Or as the psalmist says, your wife, this is describing the godly man, your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Lo thus is the man who's blessed who fears the Lord. Do we see children this way? You know, the testimony of scripture is children are only and always a blessing. Every child refracts your love in a different way. Molly Kelly is one of my friends and at the time that her husband died in a freakish sledding accident, they had eight children ranging in age from 14 months to 14 years. And I said to her, did you ever have a sense like, oh, maybe we shouldn't have had quite as many children because it was so overwhelming to care for all of these children without him there? And she said, oh, if I could have had more, I would have because every child refracted our love in a different way. And in each one, I see my beloved in a different way. A child is not a possession to acquire, not an adventure to take, but a gift to receive. The catechism says, quote, a child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of mutual giving as it's fruit and fulfillment. It's a chance to fall in love all over again. And it's just as true of adoption as it is children who are born from your union. Vatican II document Gaudi Bethesbest says, children are, quote, the supreme gift of marriage. They contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents. Now catch that. Okay, we know they benefit from us. I mean, we do not bring them home from the hospital and say, okay, honey, your bedroom second door down on the right, food's in the fridge, and I shop regularly on Tuesdays, right? I mean, when we walk in the door, we know they except for breathing and maybe even for breathing, they're completely dependent upon us. But do you know they benefit us? How? They show how dependent we have to be upon God. This is part of our sanctification as we give of ourselves. We think that we have grown out of a lot of selfishness when we first get married and we realize, oh, I'm more selfish than I thought I was. But you know, Scott never woke me in the middle of the night and said, I really need some food. He never said, would you just get up and walk the house with me for the next three hours? You know, he didn't impinge on my life the way my firstborn did. And God worked out that selfishness, and then there was the second one and so on. The promise of the New Covenant is that the hearts of the fathers will be turned toward their children and we need mothers and fathers together to choose the church's way of marriage. And do you know there was a consistent witness? Every Protestant denomination until 1930 agreed with the church's teaching. Every Protestant denomination agreed. And then the Anglican church, the Lambeth Conference over in England, allowed contraception in the life of the mother. And that became the thin edge of the wedge to the point where you have whole denominations sanctioning abortion all nine months. In response and to declare the truth in the same year 1930, our Holy Father wrote this, any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature. And those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin. So I don't know to what extent you've understood it before now, but I believe I need to make it very clear this morning. Contraception, sterilization, these are intrinsically evil acts. And until and unless we will take the discipleship that we have been called to in Jesus Christ seriously in our families, we will not be communicating the truth the way we need to. But there is grace. Get to confession if you've deliberately committed these sins. Get cleansed. Walk in that because the Lord doesn't want us just to collapse within. We need to just receive the grace and then move forward. One of the challenges for many of us who are my age and older is you may have lived this. You may have lived it sacrificially, but now what do you do with your children? As you see your children struggling, is the gracious thing to come alongside and say, you don't have to do this, honey. This is just too hard. Or is grace speaking the truth, letting them know how much you're praying for them, and then finding the way to support them so that they are open to life as well. We're to yield everything to our Lord, and that includes our body. 1 Corinthians 6, 19, and 20 says, don't you know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God. You are not your own. You were bought with a price. What price? That price. So glorify God in your body. It is not easy to do, but there is grace to do it. I remember when we had, again, this is Jeremiah, and by now I knew that I was going to have a C-section every time. From the time they wheeled me back from the delivery room, I just tried to fill my heart with thanksgiving for him and say, Lord, work in my heart. I mean, if I could have stood on a button and pressed it, I would say, I'd never won another C-section again in my life, but I got Jeremiah, and so I was like, Lord, I need you to work in my heart so that my heart will be joyous at any good news of another baby coming. And so about a week later, we're in the living room and Hannah walks by and she goes, maybe the next one will be a girl, because she really wanted a sister, and everything in me went, oh my gosh, you know, and I went, maybe, and she walked out of the room and I'm like, oh God, I am so nervous. He was only a week old, but I was really shocked by how everything in my being recoiled at the thought. And again, I just kept saying, Lord, fill my heart with thanksgiving for the reality of this child, the privilege of being able to have this child, and if you should so deem fit to use my body to bring another child into this world and then bring that child to you, I say yes, I say yes. And I found within about six weeks, as I was putting some of the maternity clothes, without thinking about it, I was putting clothes away. My thought was, I wonder if I'll ever get to wear them again. I hope I do. And I was like, okay, that just came out of my heart without thinking about it. That's really awesome. Well the next baby that I conceived, I miscarried. And unlike all the other times, I conceived again quickly, and years later, seven years later, Joe and I are sitting in the kitchen and he said, so you had a miscarriage right before me, and I said that's true. And he said, if that baby had lived, would I be here? And I said actually no, because it was just very, very close to when I conceived you. And he said, I'm really sorry that baby died, but this way you get to have us both. Our children as children of the covenant lost in miscarriage have gone before us. I believe we're different parents because of their prayers for us. And I will get them both. I will get them both. We're to yield everything. And one of my life verses, if I signed a book, I'd probably put this in there is Romans 12, 1 and 2. And I'm going to have to just whiz through this quickly, but I want to share some thoughts about it. Romans 12, 1. All right, turn to page two soon. I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. So St. Paul is trying to summarize something very important. And that's why, you know, you always ask why the therefore is therefore. And he says, I killed you by the mercies of God. This is not about the law of the church is be open to life. It is God who is life-giving love and life-loving giver has made us in his image, called us to reflect him. And sometimes he blesses that union with a whole new person. And we do this yielding our bodies. And really, when you think about children, it requires the gift of everything we have. It's our emotions, isn't it? It's our bodies. It's our minds, our money. I mean, really, it's a great way of yielding to the lordship of Jesus Christ. But it's by the mercy of God. Let's be honest, we can't even raise one child all on our own. It's going to take great mercy. But the mercy of God is available. He doesn't leave us on our own, right? So by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, we worship God with our bodies. We kneel, we stand, we receive, we smell the incense, we hear the prayers and the music. He didn't just create a spiritual being. We have bodies. And we are to lay those bodies down for as an act of spiritual worship. You know, one of my friends said the hard thing about being on the altar is that we're not dead yet. And so it begins to pinch, it begins to get difficult, it begins to be challenging. And what do we do? We're tempted to crawl off the altar. And he's like, come on, honey, you really do want to be back up on that altar. Give me yourself. Pregnancy can really bring this into sharp focus. I mean, I did not set out to say, no, I would really like this to be a very meaningful time. So I want to be pretty nauseous. I'd like to have stretch marks that never ever go away. I'm real open to gaining a whole lot of weight, even though I'll struggle to lose it. Veracose veins, yep, let's add those, you know, there's so many specific sacrifices. And yet, it can be an act of worship to yield myself to him. Because what is God doing? I love some, I mean, everything that Curtis was sharing, but here's what it highlights. In our own little home, we are creating the civilization of love. We're demonstrating at great cost what that means to give God everything. I remember with my last pregnancy, my oldest was 16. Bizarre experience to have a child old enough to drive the other children to the hospital. Scott didn't have to go home and get them. Our oldest drove, you know, my oldest too walk in and they're both over six feet tall, which was kind of fun to see the nurses same parents. Wow, you know, and I was laying there with all kinds of tubes still in me and everything from the surgery and Gabriel gently took my hand and he said, Mom, how will we ever find the way to thank you? They knew what a gift this child was. And according again to Vatican II, the purpose of marriage quote is to witness to the world Christ's presence and the nature of the church by the mutual love of spouses, by their generous fruitfulness, their solidarity and faithfulness, and by the loving way all members of the family assist one another. You know, today there's a new virtue talked about that I don't think was talked about in previous centuries and that is planned parenthood. What an utterly irrelevant question. Did you plan this child? You know who did Almighty God Ephesians one, three and four says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. I can point my children that before you were in existence, you were a thought in the mind of God from all eternity. He chose you and then St. Paul goes on to say this in five and six. He, the Lord, destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, not just to have human life, but to have spiritual life, divine life according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. Each of us has been made by God for God, by love itself, for love. He doesn't just love humanity in some general way. It's very specific. How desperately our world needs to know that God loves you. He made you. He destined you to live to the praise and glory of his grace. And we paved the way for our children, for them to know that. Proverbs 14.26 says this, in the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence. I referenced this the first night, and his children will have a refuge. So by having that godly spouse and your own commitment to the Lord, and then committing to being open to life, you're creating a refuge for your children. Now, step number five is provide for their practical needs too. And I'm going to fly through some of this. There is so much in Proverbs 31 that is so practical. What I've love to think of it is, and Scott has this in one of his book titles, ordinary work can mean extraordinary grace. Okay. So I'm just going to highlight a few verses. Verse 13. She seeks woolen flax and works with willing hands. And verse 19, she puts her hand to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. Woolen flax were inexpensive materials to be able to make wool cloth and linen cloth. And so this woman provides for the practical needs of her household. She makes sure that they have clothing to wear. Comfortable, attractive, appropriate. In verse 21, it says she's not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet. She's not afraid of snow. She's not afraid of dangers and disasters and difficulties because God has always provided for her family. And she knows he will provide for the needs of her family in the future. And the scarlet is actually a reference to the double layer of wool for warmth. So it's protective clothing as well as attractive clothing. In fact, in verse 22, it says she makes herself coverings and her clothing is fine linen and purple. Now the coverings could be any number of different things in a household. It could be table cloths or bedspreads or quilts or upholstery, tapestries, home decor. But also her own clothing is beautiful. The beauty of her home and what she wears is reminiscent of the beauty of the tavernacle when Israel was going through the desert with all of its plain sameness when they would come to the tavernacle. It was beautifully decorated and drew their hearts in worship to God. She cares for the practical needs of her household. Now a lot of what I do and some of you are homemakers, what we do is very repetitive work, right? Very mundane. One of the things I have been so blessed by my mom is she gives me spiritual ways of thinking of things. One time I told her, I just, I hate ironing. I hate it. Help me redeem that. And she said, you know, when I iron, I pray for whoever is going to wear that piece of that garment and that they will do things that will honor God and that they won't do things that dishonor God and was like, wow, I can do that. Okay. All right. That redeems it. You know, well, one day I was doing laundry and I had, I was bringing, I was literally in the middle of a set of stairs and I was bringing up a basket of laundry and a little shirt, a health text shirt caught my eye and I stopped and I was like, God, how many times am I going to wash this shirt? I mean, Michael wore that shirt and then Gabriel had worn that shirt and then Jeremiah had worn that shirt and now Joseph was wearing that shirt and it was like, how many times have I washed the, like what am I doing? I actually said it out loud. I, hopefully my children weren't around to see my little discouragement, but I was like, help me. And I just felt like he nudged me and said, look at this small little shirt. How many children have you loved how many times with that one shirt? It's amazing. It transformed that time for me. I almost danced up the steps because the task didn't change, but my heart did. I have a chance to love my child through how I clothe them, through how I feed them, through how I care for them. It was a great different perspective. And I'm reminded of Hannah, you know, Hannah in the Old Testament and for Samuel one and two, she's begging God for a child, please give me a child. If you give me a child, I will give him back to you. And then God blesses her with Samuel. At three years old, she brings him to Eli in the temple. Eli, who is the man of God, but a lousy dad, three years old, she gives Samuel to Eli. She leaves him there and she goes home. Now her reward is according to, to Samuel is she got five more children. But of course he was her firstborn, her beloved. And it says every year she made him a robe and took it to him. Can you imagine the love she put into every stitch that he would think of his mother's love for him, even though she wasn't there because he was serving in the temple? Small things, ordinary things, but there's a way for extraordinary grace to be communicated. How about food? Look at verse 14. She's like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from afar. Okay. And then 15. She rises while it's at night and provides food for her household and tasks for her maiden. Okay. She combines good smells, good tastes, variety of colors. She's thinking about what will nourish their bodies as well as what will nourish their spirits. When I shared this in a Bible study about the importance of the dinner hour and to plan ahead, to prepare ahead and then train your children to help set the table and clear the table and all of that. I had a young woman come up to me afterwards and she said, my life is about to change. Like, okay, why? And she said, my husband works swing shift and every night, every night I do drive through McDonald's. She said, I have four little children, seven and under, and I go through McDonald's and we come home. We don't use plates because they don't know how to do dishes and I don't want to do dishes. And so we just have our McDonald's food and then we throw it away and we go on and she goes, I'm going to go home and begin cooking. I'm going to make dinner for them and I'm going to train them to help me with the dishes. And she said, I don't know if what you share will have any other impact on our lives but our lives are going to change because we're going to have a dinner hour. Isn't that beautiful? Something so simple. One of the hardest things about being in city council is seeing how many people in our town don't assume it's their job as a parent to feed and clothe their children. On the one hand, we want to help and there are people in great need and I'll talk about generosity in a minute but I think there are a lot of young parents who check out of that and don't even assume that it is their responsibility to care for these practical needs of their own children. Each task that I do is a response to the Lord. I am not the unpaid maid. I am not the one who's being put upon. When it's time to pick up the baby, Jesus is the one asking me to pick up the baby. When it's time to make dinner, Jesus is the one asking me to make dinner. You see what I'm saying? We can change the way we think about things when we think of this as a response to God first and foremost. I love my mom's description about a home. She said, I wanted to make a home that was beautiful to welcome you back from the storms of life. Home is to be a place of order, a place of beauty. Proverbs 24, 3, and 4 says, by wisdom a house is built and by understanding it's established. By knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. On the one hand, we make a beautiful home, a safe home, an attractive home, and at the same time we try to detach. Because it's still only things and the people are always more important, right? Okay, we had just moved into a new home and we had refinished the floors and in the kitchen it's a pine floor so the wood's very, very soft. My daughter wanted to have a group of college friends over to do a fundraiser and I never imagined that I needed to say if someone has stiletto heels tell them not to wear them in the kitchen. After the whole thing was over my husband yelled, Kimberly come to the kitchen and I came running and he said, look at this floor. Apparently with stiletto heels the amount of weight that is put on that heel is similar to the weight of an elephant. I don't understand the physics but I've been told that. And probably she had had the part around the nail come out. Seriously, they were quarter inch deep holes. Like she probably walked and had to pull her heel out as she walked and I said to my daughter, I mean they were all over the floor and I said to my daughter, honey, who was wearing stiletto heels? I need to talk to them. They have to help us fix this. And she said she's very poor and I won't tell you who it is. And she said if someone has to pay I'll pay for it. And I was like, oh my gosh, okay, okay, detach, detach, detach, detach. So I had the wood guy come over and he looked at it and he said, there is nothing I can do. This floor cannot be taken down any further so you can cover it, you can put in a new floor, you can live with it. And I said, okay, we'll live with it. And every time I saw those holes I tried to change the way I thought about it saying Jesus, thank you that our home was used as this fundraiser for college students. Thank you for the love my daughter has for this girl that didn't want to tell her name. I thank you. A year later someone comes over and says, wow, how did you get those holes in the floor? And I said why? And she said it's so random. It's amazing how you antique this floor so much more valuable with the holes. Wow, that's amazing God. Okay, verse 16. She considers a field and buys it with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She expands the property. She takes the finances, the practical things that are involved in the home and she expands it. Gardening is so incredible. When you think about monasteries, okay, you can't picture a monastery that doesn't have a garden and they're not interested in wasting time. It's all about prayer and going deep with God and somehow or another, gardens are a part of it. I wish I could walk you through the gardens we have in our home because it's been such an expression of love for God and having the land either be fruitful or be beautiful. And I really do think it's in response to this particular passage. I taught on it and then I looked out and saw a land that wasn't developed and I'm like, I'm going to do it. And I made an orchard. So one time I was out gardening with one of my children, Joseph, he was five at the time and he said, I've got to make a time machine. And he said it was such a determination. It was like, okay, what time machine? Okay, you want a time machine? What are you going to do with a time machine? He said, I've got to get back to the Garden of Eden. I've got to tell Adam, don't do it. It isn't worth it. Now, all he meant was the weeds. He was right at many levels. He was right. Land. Land is one of the covenant blessings. A name that is valuable. Children, land. This is real wealth. Okay. There's so many lessons. I wish I could unpack them, but I'm just going to mention a few things. So many spiritual lessons. Composting. That's like confession. I turned over this pile of leaves that it's sat for like seven years and I went, ah, confession. This is like confession. And one of my children looked at me and thought, she is officially losing it. I said, no, think about it. We come to confession with a yuck and muck of our sins and we leave with penance, with the opportunity to turn it into the mulch of our spiritual life. Nothing is wasted with God. With gardening, you learn. You cannot rush growth. You can't rush it. We can't rush it in ourselves, our spouse or our children. You can't put a seed in the ground and expect produce the next day. You've got to tend it. You've got to care for it. You have to eliminate the weeds and what do you have to do with the weeds? You've got to uproot them because if you just cut them, they're going to come back. You've got to go deep and dig that out. And then you can teach your children and those who work alongside you. You know, John 15, I am the true vine and my father's the vine dresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away. I can see this woman walking along the vineyard with her children and saying, I'm going to have to prune this one. I'm going to have to prune this one. It's not bearing enough fruit, but there's good roots. That's like sin in our lives, kids. We've got to let God prune and he does a lot of pruning through suffering and she turns it into a lesson or maybe finding a dead plant and says, this has stopped producing fruit and so pull it up and we're going to put it in the fire to burn tonight. Don't be like this one. This ceased growing. Oh, there's so many lessons, but I need to move on. So the next step is set a good example. Keep growing in virtue. In verse 18 it says, she perceives her merchandise is profitable. She is industrious. She knows there's profit in her labors, literally tastes the fruit of her labors. One of the joys I have is I often bring fresh produce to council and I'll just go around and give each one a zucchini or each one a butternut squash or each one a little baggy of blueberries that I just picked and cleaned and bring them in. She's a good time manager. Now you might be tempted to think she never sleeps and I don't think that's the case but in 15 it says she rises while it's night and provides food for her household and tasks for her maidens and then in 18 it says her lamp doesn't go out at night. Now she is still human. She does sleep but she is very careful in time management. She rises early, prioritizes her time, delegates her work and the lamp not going out at night is indicative of being watchful or having oversight of the home so it never goes out of a state of readiness. Father Ray Ryland who was a spiritual director for me talked about sleep being like a little desk and rising in the morning is like a little resurrection and we need prayer at the start of that day because grace is available now. So we might forget who we are and sitting down and having prayer in the morning before we get into all of these tasks is so important to set our mind I am a child of God. I'm married to a child of God. You are bringing a civilization of love in our in our home. Now in the midst of that you might hear someone scream mom and it can break the mood a little but that's God's call to break off from prayer. Go deal with that situation and find another opportunity to return to prayer right. Lamentations 3 21 to 24 this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning great is thy faithfulness. Okay and it's really incumbent on us those of us who are older Titus 2 3 to 5 that we are to train young women how to be in their homes domestic how to bring the Lordship of Christ to bear. Step 7 is teach the children the faith by words and deeds. Wow I 42 seconds for the last four pages. Okay I'm going to just summarize verse 26 she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue we need to teach we can't just be a wordless witness to our kids we have to articulate the faith we have to challenge them like us to love God with all their heart all their mind all their soul all their strength but we've told our children over and over again is you may be called to marriage you may be called to priesthood you may be called to consecrated life what you all must do is give everything to Jesus and then you do what's on your heart God will not call you to do the opposite of what you want to do I really want to get married so God's going to make me be consecrated or really want to be consecrated God's going to make me get married it doesn't work that way love God with everything and he will guide and direct your path step seven draw your family into missionary discipleship again I wish I could share so much about generosity in 31 verse 20 it says she opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy we need to model that for our children our our personal involvement in meeting the needs of the poor as an act of worship and act of gratitude a matter of obedience and act of faith we don't live on a hundred percent of our money we trust God by giving and giving generously we do it bountifully we do it without compulsion cheerfully and step eight keep the end in mind live today in light of eternity what are the consequences of this woman in 23 her husband is known in the gates by being faithful in our tasks the reputation of our spouse is promoted and then their influence can be greater number two she's a strong woman a woman of dignity physical strength but especially spiritual 25 she laughs at the time to come and I love that strength and dignity or clothing and she laughs is she silly is she ridiculous does she not care about the future no she doesn't know the future but she knows the one who knows the future and as our children are wrestling with different challenges from different children some of it are discipline issues some of it are physical issues concerns and they bring their concerns to us and we join with prayer we can say God is in this God will meet you he will he he is in the midst of this situation cling to him we have a past we can refer to because God has met us we give our children that encouragement that it's still happening she's wise and kind in verse 26 and shares her wisdom in 27 she looks well to the ways of her household and doesn't eat the bread of idleness and finally and I take great consolation in this even the children rise up and call her blessed so if any of you are in the midst of young children who haven't actually noticed that you're doing anything important be patient give them time they will as they begin to have their own families look at you in utter amazement at what you did and it's very rewarding so I'm going to close with this with this passage Psalm 144 12 prayer for our children may our sons in their youth be like plants full grown similar to the cedars of Lebanon and our daughters like corner pillars cut for the structure of a palace ornate sculpted works of art created through chiseling and hard work upholding the corners of a temple strong and beautiful verse 31 give her of the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates by the grace of God he will use us to raise up godly families one day at a time one grace at a time he will use it all our weaknesses our failures but also the good choices we make trust god trust god as you are in that boat of family life with all of the challenges and the storms of life that rage no he is with you he will strengthen you and he will give you what you need to honor him let me close in prayer in the name of the father son and holy spirit amen lord Jesus I thank you for this incredible vocation of marriage I thank you for the example of the proverbs 31 woman and I ask lord that you would help us to live the kingdom with intentional discipleship in our families and may we bring honor and glory to your name lord in all that we do in Jesus name we pray amen amen thank you God bless you