Proverbs 31:10-31

“God, what a marvelous portrait of biblical femininity! Faithfulness (vv 11-12), industriousness (vv 13-27), tenderness (vv 20, 26), strength (vv 17, 25), honor (vv 25, 28-29), foresight (v 25), wisdom (v 26). Thank you, Lord, for putting me around so many women who aspire to be this way and a wife who succeeds. Please help me to praise and honor her as I ought.

And please help the young ladies in our church and our own little Julia Grace to be this way. Please make this picture of womanhood compelling and desirable to them. Help them fear you more than scorn. Help them enjoy you more than praise. Spare them the emptiness and transience of treasuring beauty and charm over character and wisdom. And please bring to them the kind of men who know what really matters in a woman and cherish these ladies for it.

Lord, please do all this in them and for them by the power of the gospel, for our deepest joy, and for your great glory! Amen."