Just Another Fish in the Sea

He didn’t marry an excellent wife. She was awkward in stature and build, and a little bit quirky in social settings. She was young, some would say too young to wear that band of gold.

She was a stranger to the kitchen, unable to execute even a frozen pizza. Their home was unadorned and plain, despite her efforts to “dress it up” with thrift store finds, bought from their meager budget.

We stumbled a bit through our first year of marriage.

Back on that day when it all began, as my heart pounded hard and steady– arm linked in my father’s–as I  walked down that aisle, I was not the “Excellent Wife” who is “hard to find”, spoken of in Proverbs 31.

I doubt many of us are on that day as we vow everything we don’t know how to give, and commit to a life wholly foreign to us.

Rather, I believe that it is the strain, the struggle, the commitment, the practice of vulnerability, and the grace which marriage requires that shape us into excellence.

 An Excellent Habit it is– That Habit of Excellence!

Aristotle said it,

I don’t believe that many of us at all, standing under that alter with shaky hands, vowing what we know not how to promise, were Excellent Wives.

Standing there in glowing white dress and fragile lace veil, we are anything but excellent. We are brand new and inexperienced.

It is in the passing of time, and how we allow time and its circumstances to shape us, that give us a glimpse into who this Excellent Wife looks like. It is through failure, forgiveness, and grace that we begin to see this type of wife that our husband truly desires at his very core—the wife that he needs.

Likewise, this also affords us a glimpse into the type of wife our husband does not desire; one that does not build him up or prosper him.

But we’ll only see these things if we look closely, because in our world today, the line between these two types of wives has been blurred. The Biblical portrayal of the “Excellent Wife” has been skewed by our contemporary pursuits of “excellence.”

What Does Your Husband Really Want? 

Over 5 years have passed since I walked down that aisle, and I still don’t think I can exactly classify myself as an Excellent Wife. However, day by day I am seeing how practicing a habit of excellence is directly tied to paying attention to what my husband really wants, as well as what he doesn’t.