A Lost Nobility

It was a bizarre introduction; several years ago a gentleman from my church was introducing me to a new family and suddenly realized he didn’t actually know my name, so he jokingly said this is Mrs. Ray. You see, I am a pianist, and as such I have spent the majority of my adult years at the keys before, during, and after a church service.  Often people talk to my husband and he points in my direction at the piano and tells them I am his wife, when people finally get around to staying more than five minutes after service and meet me post-prelude they think of me as Mrs. Ray. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My greatest sense of accomplishment comes from being Mrs. Ray. I enjoy being aligned with this man, playing for his team so to speak. Unfortunately, I haven’t always felt this way. When I was young, both physically and spiritually, I wanted my own name, my own entity. I wasn’t satisfied being the wife of a good man, oh no, I wanted recognition for being me and for whatever talents I perceived I possessed. I hadn’t been taught by my family or church that the whole “they two shall become one flesh” wasn’t poetic metaphor, that the Lord intended it to be taken literally. So for years I tried to severe my identity from my husband’s and in doing so damaged our marriage and my own relationship with God.  Then like the pinnacle of all the beautiful stories of my life, God intervened, bringing people into my life to show me the path I needed to be on.  They began to teach me about the nobility of being a wife, it's a lost art in our post-modern, post-christian society, but if we are to thrive as people of God we will have to learn this lost nobility.

It’s all in who you know,  this cliché’ may be modern but the principle is ancient. If you study the ancient world at all you will see Family Dynasties ruling China, Celtic Clans with ruling Chieftains’ passing succession down by paternity, the ever so popular fairy tale of Camelot, begins with a secret son born of the King’s blood that takes the throne and unites the Britons. Family is everything, in every society, in every age, to return to the vernacular, families rule! Strong patriarchs, raising strong sons in succession make nations strong, but as every chess player knows, if you compromise the queen the game is over. That’s what we are seeing in our current culture, we are compromising the queen, stealing her value and nobility.

In ages past to be the wife of a good man, was a title of honor, a woman’s first name was rarely used in polite society by a gentleman who wasn’t a close relation. A woman was addressed by her standing in society, and she was standing next to her husband.  I can guarantee that some of you are already typing scathing responses in your mind about how I must devalue women and so forth, but take a deep breath and read on. Anytime there is a fundamental shift in a social paradigm, we have to ask ourselves three questions:

What was changed? Who changed it? What was their motive for change?

The change is obvious, women want independence, control, they want to be in charge, this desire is nothing new. Take a cursory look at Genesis, and you will see God telling Eve that as a result of the fall “her desire will be for her husband (more accurately translated for her husband’s position), but he will rule over her”, sounds like a curse alright. Take two newly minted sinners, place them in a romantic environment and tell them that their very natures are going to make them desire to rip each other’s heads off. That explains a lot, it certainly clarifies the motives of the feminist, she doesn’t want to be ruled over, she wants her husband’s position. It’s human nature to desire what we cannot have, our sin drives us to covetousness, and we women think autonomy is the holy grail of guilty pleasures, it’s innate and inescapable in our unredeemed form . This desire has been present for all human history, look at the story of the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatsheput; she was a female ruler over Egypt. She desired power and position above all else, this led her to concoct an outrageous tale about her divinity, then she dropped all titles related to being female, subsequently assuming the title of Pharaoh, eventually she even wore a fake beard! This lady was invested in her ideology to say the least.

The feminists have done the same, step by step, they have concocted an outrageous lie, then systematically stripped away what it meant to be female, and assumed male leadership. My question is where did this leave the queen? You may say she’s on the throne, autonomous, and doing fine! Perhaps if the curse of desire for her husband’s position was her only longing she would be fulfilled, or if our lives were just this brief vapor on earth and there was not eternity or account to be given, but neither of these are reality. You see inside every little girl thrives the dream of a fairytale, Prince Charming, true love, the Castle, the whole nine yards. Women may have found power, but they stand alone. They stand without the joy of their daughters, the strength of their sons, the love and protection of their husbands, and most importantly without salvation from their God. The queen, my friend, has been compromised and the consequences are dire.

Unless…this is one of my favorite words in all of the English language, unless we return to the teachings of scripture and the idea of a wife of character being the personification of nobility. Unless we throw ourselves on the mercy of the Savior and He renews our minds to understand His paths. Unless we teach our daughters to war with their natures and embrace the nobility of being feminine and designed by God to be woman, the queen will continue to be compromised. There is great and precious value in being the wife of a good man and in fulfilling that role throughout our days. I know that sounds archaic to our modern ears that barely rise above the drowning tide of feminist’ witches brew that has been steeping for decades in our culture, but personally I think it about time for a modern day fairy tale.

Over the next several weeks I will endeavor to crawl verse by verse through the well known passage in Proverbs 31. I will attempt to glean from the scriptures what it means to take on this noble role. If you would like to take this journey with me stick around as we wind through this section of scripture. It is a passage ripe with sacrifice, joy, love and a heroine that helps secure her husband’s place and family’s security, sounds like an epic adventure to me. A virtuous woman, amid the ashes of our burning sinful natures…can you find her?