Proverbs 31 Written on the Heart

The Wall Street Journal recently published an interesting article on success-driven, career-minded women, whose desires radically change upon having children. The story is illustrated by one such woman who dropped her career and started a business out of the home so she could be at home with her daughters:

“Mary Beth Reeves, of Atlanta, had worked her way up to a high-level training and development position at Starwood Hotels & Resorts when she found out she was pregnant with quadruplet girls." I was career driven and competitive," she recalls.  "I'd get on a plane to go to a meeting at a moment's notice, and once there, I'd stick around longer to have drinks."

But once her daughters were born, Ms. Reeves, then 37, says her priorities changed. "I didn't need the prestigious title, and I wanted to do my job and go home."

Seeking meaningful work as well as more personal time, Ms. Reeves, now 40, created a new career on her own terms. She launched her own business, Scrapbook Mamma, which develops custom photobooks.

She employs a nanny to help with her daughters while she runs her business from home. "Necessity was the cause of my reinvention," she says. "I'd been happy in my hospitality career, but then one day, I wasn't.’”

The anecdote that introduces us to Mary Beth Reeves is nothing short of that which is spoken of in Proverbs 31 which depicts the godly woman as both a homemaker and an industrious entrepreneur out of the home:

“She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night” (Proverbs 31:15-18, ESV).

This story is by no means surprising; it is an affirmation of the very nature of womanhood according to the Scriptures. A woman’s natural, God-implanted desire will be for her children and that may well entail both faithful child-rearing and profitable commerce out of the home. This is also a reminder that biblical womanhood is by no means a stifling, cookie-cutter reality for women, but a gloriously liberating and empowering truth.