Harry Houdini as a young 20 year old performer, still years away from fame, met an 18 year
old singer named Wilhalmina Rohnes. She sat in the front row of his performance and he
spilled a glass of colored liquid that spotted her dress. To make amends he got her to give
him her measurements. He then talked his mother into making her a new dress. He
personally delivered the dress to her home. He invited her to go with him to Coney Island
and there he proposed to her, and before the day was over they were married.
This is what you call love at first sight, and a whirlwind courtship. It is an extremely high
risk method of getting married, but the fact is it sometimes works wonderfully. It did for
Houdini. They were inseparable for life, and he wrote her a love note everyday for 30 years
whether he was home or traveling. The fact that he was a Jew is a key factor in why it was
such a happy marriage. The Jews have always been a people seriously committed to being
great lovers. Houdini's father was a Rabbi, and his mother was 25 years younger than his
father. The age factor, class factor, and economic factor all of which makes so great a
difference in the lives of Gentiles did not make any difference to Jews. They meant it when
they married for better or for worse, and they went on loving through all the hardships of
life.
A little girl by the name of Lucy came home from school all excited to tell her mother the
new story her teacher told. She said, "Snow White lived in the forest with 7 little men and
one day she ate a poison apple and fell asleep. Then a prince came and kissed her and she
woke up." And then she asked her mother, "Guess what happened?" The mother
responded, "They lived happily ever after." "No no," Lucy protested, "They got married."
There is a difference between getting married and living happily ever after. Marriage often
leads to motherhood, and these two roles add a great deal of tension and responsibility to
life. The Jews learned from the Bible that love does not guarantee that life will be smooth
and happy, but persistent love is the only way to victory over all the obstacles that will block
the way to God's best.
Look at the great couples of the Bible, and you will not find life as a bed of roses without
thorns. Adam and Eve fell in love at first sight, and they were married the day they met. It
was the world's first romance, but in no time there was sorrow and tension. They disobeyed
God and had to endure the loss of perfect fellowship and the ideal environment of Eden.
Then they became parents, and who knows what they did for diaper service? They had their
problems as they had one child after another. The kids grew up fighting, and one of them
even killed another. The first family had enormous tensions but Adam and Eve went on
loving through it all. They did not have a lot of choices, of course. Had they gotten a
divorce there was none other to turn to. But there is no hint they ever desired separation.
After Cain killed Abel they had Seth and many other children. They loved each other and
were committed to each other in spite of all the trials.
This pattern carried on, and we see this as the primary characteristic of the Patriarchs
and their mates. Job and his wife went through physical and mental hell, but they went
through it together, and in the end they are one and in love. Abraham and Sarah had
enormous trials and tensions, but they faced them together, and through laughter and tears
they endured. The burden of barrenness, the fear of lust, the agony of deception and
separation, and of jealousy, and family conflict, and even war and captivity could not pry
them loose from their commitment of love.
Their children and grandchildren maintained this heritage. Isaac and Rebekah also fell in
love at first sight and were married the day they met. They had twins, and this was double
trouble, for each parent preferred a different son. Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah loved
Jacob. This led to tension, and later to the deception of Isaac by Rebekah. The things we
read in the Bible almost always lead to divorce in our day, but they work their way through
their problems and remained committed in love. Their son Jacob fell in love with Rachel at
first sight. He had to wait 7 years before he married her, but Scripture says it seemed like
only a few days to him because of his great love for her. They had the problem of Rachel
being barren, and then the jealousy and conflict with her sister Leah. They had terrible
competition as wives and mothers.
All of these couples had their problems, but they persisted in love through them all. This
is the biblical heritage that made Jews such persistent lovers. None of the great marriages of
the Bible were perfect marriages, but they were persistent marriages. They did not let life's
problems dissolve their commitment. The Jews have not only survived, they have thrived in
a world that is often determined to eliminate them, and it is because they have had ideals
they lived by. Ideals are essential to progress. Those who are content with the real are
content with far less than what can be an ought to be. Harriet de Antermont wrote,
No vision and you perish;
No ideal, and you're lost;
Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost;
Some hope, some dream to cling to,
Some rainbow in the sky;
Some melody to sing to,
Some service that is high.
Every mother has her ideals pictured for her in Prov. 31. It is not an easy picture to
examine because it makes the mothers feel that they have fallen so far short. Nevertheless, it
needs to be examined, for without the knowledge of the ideal, the real will never have the
motivation necessary to change and improve to become more like the ideal. The first thing
we need to observe about this picture of the ideal mother is that it comes from a mother.
Verse 1 tells us that this chapter consists of the words of Lemuel which he learned from his
mother. This section from verse 10-31 is instruction to be read and memorized by Jewish
boys as a guide for what to seek in a wife. It is for girls to learn what she ought to be as a
potential wife. It is traditionally read by husband and children on a Friday night at the
Sabbath table.
To make it easier to be memorized it is put in the form of an acrostic. Each verse begins
with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. There are 22 letters in their alphabet, and 22 verses in
this section, and so it would be equivalent to the one time popular song in English that goes,
A your adorable, B your so beautiful, C your the cutest one I know, and so on. This fact
alone makes us realize how important the Hebrew people felt it was to keep a constant ideal
in the minds of youth concerning a woman's role. The one thing on which all wise men have
agreed is the high value of a good woman.
Euripides could say, "There is no worse evil than a bad woman; and nothing has ever
been produced better than a good one." James Russell Lowell said, "Earth's noblest thing, a
woman perfected." The goal of this passage is to aid women in achieving the role of an ideal
wife and mother. The first requirement we see here is that she become-
I. A GOOD PARTNER.
It is a mistake to think you can be a good mother and be a poor wife. One of the greatest
impressions a child gets comes from the relationship he observes between his parents. There
is nothing you can do for or with a child that will blind it to a poor relationship between the
two he loves most. If I try and recall sad moments in my home life, I do not think of any of
the spankings I got, or of disappointments because of being denied. The saddest moments I
remember are when I sensed my parents were not getting along. Nothing produces more
insecurity and fear in a child. Marriage comes first and then motherhood. The marriage is
the foundation, and if that is not what it ought to be, motherhood will never be ideal.
We are, of course, assuming that the home has both partners. History is filled with
illustrations of widowed women who have contributed immensely to the welfare of the world
through mothering great children. Mary raised Jesus much of His life as a widow.
Washington was also so raised. D. L. Moody lost his father when he was four. Napoleon lost
his father at four. Bryon and President Garfield lost their fathers at three. Chrysostom, the
golden tongued preacher of Constantinople lost his father soon after birth, and so with many
many more. A mother need not be any less ideal if she has no husband, but the point here is,
if she does have a husband her first requirement is that she be a good wife.
Woe to the woman whose husband writes and epitaph like John Dryden wrote for his wife.
"Here lies my wife; here let her lie! Now she's at rest, and so am I." Shakespeare wrote,
"Should all despair that have revolted wives the tenth of mankind would hang themselves."
In other words, a bad wife is far from rare. This has apparently always been so, for verse 10
asks the question-who can find a good one? This implies that they are far from being readily
available. If a man finds one, he is richer than if he rolled in rubies and played with pearls.
A man in Two Gentlemen of Verona refers to his wife this way: "Why man, she is mine own,
and I as rich as having such a jewel as twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, the water
nectar and the rocks pure gold." When was the last time your husband said something
similar about you?
Verse 11 tells us one of the reasons a good wife is so precious. She gives a man a sense of
security. He can trust her to be loyal to him and his interests. He does not have to worry
when he is away that his wife will run him into debt. He know s he will have no need of spoil
or added income to take care of the extravagance of a spendthrift wife. Many a marriage
fails because a wife refuses to live within the range of her husband's income. The wise wife
hunter will be on the lookout for this danger before he marries. There is no escaping it, for
economics cannot be ignored in seeking an ideal partner.
Verse 12 tells us that the ideal wife is consistent and persistent in her devotion to her
husband. She does not just do him good until the honeymoon is over, but all the days of her
life. And not only does she do him good, but she refrains from doing him evil. If that had
been left out, the ideal would be easier to attain. Most wives do their husbands good all
through life, but they also mingle some evil with it. Job had a good wife, but she did him evil
when she told him to curse God and die. Rebekah was precious to Isaac, but she deceived
him in her scheme to favor Jacob. Rachel brought idolatry into the home of Jacob, and
Michael despised David. Few are the wives that have measured up to this ideal.
But there are those who did try, and who were amazingly successful. They become
examples of what can be done when the ideal is aimed for. The ideal is like a star. It cannot
be reached, but it can be a guide. Philip Guedalla changed one word in a famous poem's
opening lines that makes it apply to our theme-
.Wives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints in the sands of time.
Consider, for example, the wife of the great reformer Martin Luther. They had much
against them when they married. He was an ex-priest and she was an ex-nun. When they
united in marriage in 1525 a storm of criticism rose up all over Europe. Even Luther's
friend Melanchthon thought it lowered his prestige.
Erasmas the Greek scholar called it a comedy, and Henry VIII of England, who had six
wives, two of whom he beheaded, called Luther's marriage a crime. Add to this the fact that
Katherine VonBora was 26 and Luther was 42. It would appear that they had two strikes
against them from the start. Katherine, however, saw to it that the third strike never came,
and they lived for 21 happy years together. So close did she come to the ideal wife that
Luther said he once had to chide himself for giving more credit to Katherine than to Christ.
No one can explain Luther's greatness apart from his wife. She fulfilled the ideal of being
both a good wife and an ideal mother. Luther said, "I would not change my Katie for France
and Venice, because God has given her to me, and she is true to me and a good mother to my
children." She looked after an orchard of apples, peaches, pears, figs, and nuts. She had a
fish pond which furnished trout, carp, pike, and perch. She had a barnyard with hens, ducks,
pigs, and cows, and at times she did the slaughtering herself. She mothered not only the 6
children of her own, but 6 of one of Luther's sisters, plus the son of another sister, the son of
a brother, a nephew and great-nephew bringing the total tribe to 16 children. On top of this
students from the Wittenberg University boarded at their home, and she took in many
monks and nuns who had left the monasteries.
With all of this she yet nursed Luther though many illnesses, and encouraged him to press
on when he was depressed. Luther gave his time to study and far surpassed her in
knowledge, but he never surpassed her devotion. She died 6 years after Luther, and her
death bed prayer reveals much. "Lord my Savior thou standest at the door and wouldst
enter in. O come Thou beloved guest, for I desire to depart and be with Thee. Let my
children be committed to Thy mercy. Lord, look down in mercy upon Thy church. May the
pure doctrine which God has sent through my husband be handed down unadulterated to
posterity. Dear Lord, I thank Thee for all the trials through which Thou didst lead me, and
by which Thou did prepare me to behold Thy glory....Behold now I grasp Thy hand and say,
as Jacob of old! Lord I will not let Thee go, unless Thou bless me. I will cling to Thee
forevermore." For her husbands good and God's glory she lived all the days of her life.
Consider the Civil War bride of the great evangelist D. L. Moody. Whoever heard of
Emma Revell Moody? Yet she, without a doubt, was an essential factor in his greatness. He
knew it too, for Paul their son, who became a Presbyterian minister and college president,
wrote that till the day of his death Moody never ceased to wonder about two things: One,
the use of God made of him in spite of his handicaps, and two, how he won the love of a
woman he considered so completely his superior. She raised his three children while
constantly living in hotels, and in the homes of strangers both here and abroad. Moody said
that she fulfilled the ideal of verse 12, and she did him good all the days of her life. He said
that in 37 years of married life she was the only one who never tried to hold him back. She
was always in sympathy with any new adventure.
She shielded him from interruptions, bores, and cranks which were always in
abundance as they traveled. She wrote his letters and paid his bills, she did all she could to
set him free to do his work for Christ. Moody could never have been what he was without
her. She fulfilled the biblical ideal in just the way the Jews considered they should be
fulfilled. The Jewish scholar Plout wrote, "The biblical life is the worthy partner, if not the
technical equal, of her husband. The closest approximation to this biblical ideal was
probably the East European Jewish housewife of the 18th and 19th centuries. Whenever
possible she earned the livelihood for the family and attempted to relieve her husband of
most of his mundane responsibilities so that he might give his life to the study of God's
Word, to scholarship, and prayer."
This has been the pattern followed by many Christian wives. Almost every man who has
contributed significantly to the course of Christian history was a man whose wife was
striving to attain this ideal. You will notice how this picture of the ideal lacks anything of the
sentimental. It seems to be strictly practical all the way through. Verse 30 even brushes
aside the factors of beauty and form in favor of the fear of the Lord. The ideal wife is
determined entirely by godly character and conduct.
John Calvin, the great reformer and theologian, refused to deviate from this standard in
selecting his wife. He replied to his friends who urged him to marry, "I do not belong to the
class of loving fools, who, when once smitten with a fine figure, are ready to expend their
affection, even on the faults of her whom they have fallen in love with. The only kind of
beauty which can win my soul, is a woman who is gentle, pure, modest, economical, patient,
and who is likely to interest herself about my health." He finally found such a woman in
Idelette De Bures. She was a widow and mother of three. All five of their own children died
in infancy, and she died after 9 years of marriage, but so great was his attachment for her
that he never considered taking another wife.
We have spent all of our time on the first requirement for being the ideal mother, and
even then we have only scratched the surface. But now let's look at a couple of other
requirements. She should also be-
II. A GIVING PERSON.
Mother's love so much, and they are loved so much because they tend to be more giving.
They give of themselves and their time to their children more than dad does. The giving
person tends to love more, for when you give to someone it is the act of love being expressed,
and love grows by being expressed. If you have given nothing to someone, you have no
relationship of any depth. Only those to whom you have given of your time and self do you
have any truly personal relationship to.
Mothers have a deeper relationship to their children because they tend to be more giving.
They give birth to the child, and they then give nourishment to the child. They give the most
time and energy to the child usually. Mothers are givers. This is not to say that they never
pass the buck to dad. Little Anita was allowed to sit at the table in mother's place one
evening when mom was gone. Her slightly older brother resenting the arrangement said
with a sneer, "So you are mother tonight. Alright, how much is two times seven?" Anita
knew how to play mother better than she realized. She responded, "I'm busy. Ask your
father."
Mothers don't have all the answers. Children can stump them everyday, for life is full of
mysteries. One mother poured out four glasses of root beer from her one calorie a bottle,
and one of the sons watched, and when she was finished he asked, "Which one of us gets the
calorie?" There are mysteries everywhere for children, and mothers have to constantly
explain these mysteries. One little girl sitting with mom at a wedding asked, "Did the girl
change her mind?" "Why do you ask that?" The girl said, "She went down the aisle with
one man and came back with another." A little boy came to his mother and said, "I am 9 feet
tall." She said, "How did you come to that conclusion?" He answered, "I took my shoes off
and measured myself, and I'm 9 of my feet tall." She had to set him straight, or he wouldn't
have been impressed with the size of Goliath at all. Mothers must be constantly giving
understanding, encouragement, and love to their children. The third characteristic of the
ideal mother we want to look at is-
III. A GRATITUDE PRODUCER.
Verse 28 says that her children arise and call her blessed, and her husband also praises
her. Verse 31 says she will be praised at the city gate. Many people will feel gratitude
toward the woman who is a good partner and a giving person. They will be grateful for her
example, and for her influence on their own life. There is a receiving end to all of the labor
of being a good wife and mother. There is a pay day. The hardest part of being a mother is
often that feeling that says, "Who cares?" Both husband and kids seem to take it all for
granted, and they seldom express gratitude. Motherhood is a long range investment. The
profits don't come in immediately. It takes time and maturity before children realize what a
price was paid by mom for her loving care and guidance.
There are probably more tributes to mothers by famous men and women than there are
to any other category of persons in history. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard yours yet,
for they often do not come until children are older. Thomas Edison paid this tribute to his
mother: "I did not have my mother long, but she cast over me an influence which has lasted
all my life. The good effects of her early training I can never lose. If it had not been for her
appreciation and her faith in me at a critical time in my experience, I should never likely
have become an inventor. I was always a careless boy, and with a mother of different mental
calibre, I should have turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, her goodness, were
potent powers to keep me in the right path. My mother was the making of me. The memory
of her will always be a blessing to me."
The famous sculptor Bartholdi gave 20 years to the work of producing the Statue of
Liberty. He looked at many women to model for this majestic statue, but finally chose his
own mother for the model of his master piece. This symbol of liberty is also a symbol of
praise and gratitude for ideal womanhood and motherhood. History is filled with works
and words of gratitude to mothers. One of the greatest tributes is the gratitude that Jesus
expressed even as he was dying on the cross. From that cross He urged John to care for His
mother. It is not likely that there was any other person in His life that had a greater
influence on Him than His mother, and just before He died for the sins of the world, He
wanted to make sure that His precious mother was cared for. Thank God for motherhood,
and thank God for this ideal toward which every mother can move for the blessing of their
children and the world.
