"But I don't want to do that job, Mommy, I want to do something BIG!"
Many moms hear that impassioned plea. They may smile at the youngster, and then give them a different job to do, or they may encourage them to do their assigned chore. Every job is important, they tell the child.
And they are correct.
Many times in ancient households, the younger girls were given the job of preparing the wool or flax (remember verse thirteen?) for weaving. It was considered to be a job that they could handle, and was also considered a necessary part of their education!
The distaff is the implement held above the head of the girl in the picture above. It usually had a Y shaped end, where the fibers could be placed and held firmly, keeping them from becoming tangled. The job was to pull those fibers in small bunches, lengthening and lengthening until it was like a thread. The hand-held spindle was twirled and put the right tension and twist on the new thread, and acted as a holder until time to weave the thread into cloth.
The older girls and women prided themselves on their spinning and weaving, so it truly was important that the younger ones take care and pride in their own craftsmanship, since they prepared the thread for the weavers. Truly there is no task too small.
And the "ideal" woman of Proverbs 31 is teaching us, too, that there is no task too small. There is nothing that needs doing, that is not worth doing well. She didn't always hand the task of spinning over to her handmaidens, her servants. She was not above doing the menial tasks, the mundane chores that were so necessary to make her household run smoothly.
Are we just as eager to complete the "small" tasks, as we are to take on the larger or more exciting ones? Do we only want to do the jobs we feel are important? The ones that will make us important, too?
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might... Ecclesiastes 9:10a
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. I Corinthians 10:31
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17
I love that painting!
ReplyDeleteIt's often hard to do those little thankless tasks. I had a friend once who hated ironing, so while she ironed her husbands shirts, she would pray for him, and Thank God for a Godly husband. It's hard to get into that mindset though.