Friday I was a big baby inside ready to throw a temper tantrum for losing my summer vacation and having to give up a financial bonus because my son needs summer school. Then today I'm hit with WORD of correction.
Abigail is my hero for this season of motherhood. Here's her self-created chore list accomplished for her family within a day:
Bake 200 loaves of bread
Two skins of wine
Slaughter and dress out five sheep for cooking
Collect a bushel of roasted grain
Bake 100 raisin cakes and 200 hundred fig cakes
Load all of the above into her mini van (called donkeys back then)
Give out the keys to each servant and instruct the caravan to pave the way for her
Board the donkey following the shipping line
Meet the King on the road, fall to your knees, proclaim His Word, speak His blessings, ask for forgiveness and humbly serve the Lord
The King in his anger responded out of feelings like we usually do, like I did Friday. He is out to kill the fool she is married to who insulted him after he did nothing but praise the man.
But Abigail does the one thing most of us can't do so easily. She lays down her life.
Knees in dirt, face planted in the ground with eyes on her king she says "let me take the blame for the fool. I wasn't there when he did what he did to you but I knew it better for us all to regard him as the fool he is and be merciful as our Lord is."
Self sacrifice is rewarded and Abigail is sent home in peace. As with other branches cut off and burned who don't produce fruit, the fool ends up dying anyway. He doesn't get to leave the Earth without first hearing about what his wife did to preserve His soul.
Abigail did what she did because she was a Proverbs 31 woman seeing beyond the visible and trusting in an unseen God. She was a model of Holy Spirit and Savior. With her Heavenly vision, she said to the king what the criminal said to Jesus on the cross "remember me when you enter the kingdom." As promised the king did. David came back for the devout widow and crowned her queen.
So good bye summer plans! My eternal crown is greater than some temporary relief from the daily sweat, toil and dirt. Besides, if I take time to see people who create chore lists for me like Abigail did for her family I've already recieved favor. Jesus alone checked off the largest box on that list; dying for my sins. Now he emplores people to come into my path and breath His life into my family.
I couldn't ask for any more than that as I temporarly live in this world but take up my mission while here - motherhood to my son and anyone who will stop in their tracks to listen to what God speaks through me. That's why a woman was chosen to be the vessel to bring Christ into the world. I don't want my temper tantrums to clog those pores.
