Today’s guest poster is Kendra. She is my late night chat buddy and go-to person on most things when it comes to natural parenting. She also co-owns Fine Linen and Purple with her soon-to-be sister-in-law Emily (who will be featured here in a few days).

She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple. — Proverbs 31:22

I love this verse for many reasons.

First, it portrays a strong woman, one who is gifted and skilled to provide for herself and her family, and (inferred from Proverbs 31 as a whole) she is happy to do this. Second, this verse shows a woman who is dressed in her very best. She works hard to put her best self forward and to do the best for her home and family.

God wants us to care: both about ourselves and for others entrusted to our care. We are called to put effort into managing our home, being there for our family, and taking care of our own needs each day. I know that there are days when it??s better, even necessary, to stay in pajamas or skip the chores, to manage stress or stay sane. However, I try my best, when possible, to not let that become the norm or default.

I notice that when I have time and take the time to put on a nicer outfit or do my hair, my attitude is better that day. When I accomplish a set of chores, or even set the table nicely before dinner, things just feel different. Taking care of yourself and working hard can both be contagious, and your positive attitude can work wonders: within your home and to others you meet.

So yes, I think this verse is telling us that it??s good to care, and to put extra effort into cultivating an attitude of joy in our lives. Put the nice ??coverings?? on the bed. Go in your closet and put on your own version of ??fine linen and purple.?? Take the time to do something a little extra for your spouse, children, friend, sibling, or co-worker. It may be the little spark you need to smile, and to spread joy to those who need it the most.

Kendra is a Catholic wife and mama of one little boy. She blogs about being a Catholic, a gamer and nerd, a real food advocate, and an attachment family at The Nerdy Wife. She also blogs about faith, fashion, beauty, and new feminism at Fine Linen and Purple.

When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet. — Proverbs 31:21

Snow in Israel? It happens. There are mountains there and all that has to happen for snow to fall is for the temperatures to drop enough and have a weather system pass over. I googled the question and found that it happens every few years. Theoretically, even the area of northern California where I live could see snow if it got cold enough when a storm system came through.

This verse seems to go back to the theme of preparation. The virtuous woman has oil for her lamps, spins thread from flax to make clothes, and her family has scarlet garments for those rare occasions when snow would happen. Purely speculating on my part, having scarlet cloth would require that whatever cloth that was dyed could hold that color (she would have to know about mordents) and she would have to have enough of whatever was used to make the dye. This means lots of crimson worms or madder red which would have been quite expensive. Scarlet garments were used for the High Priest in Israel and anyone with clothing that color would have to be quite well-off.

Another benefit of having her family clothed in scarlet would be that they could be seen in a blowing snowstorm with white out conditions. In a world where clothes were frequently whatever color the wool/flax/linen were, her family would stand out and perhaps be able to be found.

Today, we welcome Christina of Reflections of a Catholic in Formation.

??She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy.?? ??Proverbs 31:20

As young women in university, my friends and I have often been exhorted to ??be a Proverbs 31 woman??. For most of us, this seems like an okay proposition, except that nobody tells us what that means. It??s a confusing imperative because there are so many ways to be a ??Proverbs 31 woman?? and many of them don??t even apply to us yet. We don??t have husbands to trust our counsel or children to praise us, we can??t weave clothing or buy fields, so we??re left wondering what we can do to model ourselves after Proverbs 31 other than fearing the Lord. It is a wonderful thing to discover, then, that verse 20 applies to every woman and is relatively easy to emulate.

Proverbs 31:20 says of the ideal woman, ??She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy.?? It is simple, straightforward, and perfect for a woman my age. During one??s university years, there is a mixed sense of mature responsibility and juvenile desire to enjoy as much leisure as possible, the latter is made easy by the large amount of free time students enjoy being away from home and, to a certain degree, masters of their own universe. However, if one attends university in a city, he or she is not shielded from seeing that there are many people in the immediate vicinity who are in need, and for young Christian students it is the perfect opportunity to emulate the Proverbs 31 woman.

Unfortunately, universities like mine are fast paced, high expectations kinds of places which leave students little free time to enjoy leisure or dedicate time to much other than work if they want to do well. Service to the poor is often restrained to weekend mornings or giving what little cash or change a student carries to a person who asks for it. The school runs alternative break trips, but they run into the thousands of dollars, which is not always easy money for a student to get.

The cheapest of these alternative breaks is the one sponsored by the Newman Center, and it is usually filled with women in spite of the fact that we are always doing manual labor. The destination is typically in the rural South, and the project is usually helping to rebuild and renovate a house that is either falling apart or was destroyed by a natural disaster from which more affluent areas have long recovered. Students wear old, ratty clothes that only get dirtier as the week wears on, and generally do not look or act in a way which portrays a conventional sense of femininity.

I would argue, though, that doing work like this for others is not only proper in the sense that we should be helping people who need it, but that it is also inherently feminine, as per Proverbs 31:20. For young women to whom time is valuable and reflects how successful we could one day become, taking a week to go to an unfamiliar place to help someone who needs that time more than we do is a perfect expression of what Pope John Paul II referred to as the ??feminine genius??. Our instincts for care and kindness are manifested in ways that are not traditionally feminine, but the expression of them is inherently so. Perhaps, then, it is better that we are not told how to be a ??Proverbs 31 woman??, but that we are allowed to start on the road to becoming one with the opportunities which are presented to us now.

Christina is a junior at The George Washington University studying History and Latin. She is a revert to her Catholic faith, and enjoys reading (and occasionally teaching) as much as she can about it. She is fascinated by nuns and loves decidedly un-girly things like archery and contact sports. Christina blogs about her life and Catholicism at Reflections of a Catholic in Formation.