Eshet Chayil/ Reflections of A Grateful Husband

A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Proverbs 31:10-12, 25, 28, 30


18 May your fountain be blessed,
   and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
Proverbs 5:18

My wife and I will be married 23 years next month. As I write this I am in the hospital waiting room, as she is undergoing a fairly lengthy surgery, and while it is not life threatening, the Lord has taken this opportunity to drop vignettes from our life together into my spirit and memory. I am a blessed man for many reasons, and in no small part because of my wife. Eshet Chayil is the Hebrew for a wife of noble character; my wife is just such a woman. Never have I had cause not to trust her, with our home, our children, or our marriage...she takes great care, and ministers over such things with love and commitment. As I have aged, losing the handsomeness of youth, her desire to be my wife has never waned, through thick and thin, richer or poorer, her support and love for me has never weakened, her eyes never roaming, her thoughts never questionable.
The Lord created woman to be a help-mate for man, a wife to a husband, a divine symbiosis that is unrivaled in importance in earthly relationships, but we can forget the things that unite people in marriage. It's not just the good times that bind, but the hard times that dry the cement we call commitment. Without commitment, difficulties of this life quickly demolish the thin layers of infatuation, lust, and novelty of immature relationships, resulting in adultery, divorce, and a legacy of dysfunction, mistrust, emotional scarring and baggage.
My wife is not perfect, and neither am I, nor is any of us. But she wears honor and the nobility of an excellent and trustworthy wife.
And for this and so more more, I am grateful.