Friday, February 25, 2005

Foolish Woman

Prov 14:1 14:1 Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.

There once was a woman who desired to build a house. And she did so. She was very clever and did much of the work herself, without even the help of her husband. He was willing to help but often ran afoul of her ideas and so relegated himself to giving careful counsel if he thought it would be received. It very seldom was, so as a result, he had little to do but watch.

As I said, this woman was clever. She could figure all sorts of ways to erect interesting structures in her house. The husband had a hard time understanding the utility of some of her ideas but, being a weak man, figured that she was probably more artistic than he and that he should simply acquiesce to her aesthetic eye. To her credit, the woman often asked her husband’s opinion because she knew that he was the head of the household. And besides, she wanted to tell the other ladies that she was submissive. And, the fact of the matter was, that she always did submit to all of her husband’s ideas…..whenever they agreed with hers.

As the house was nearing completion, the husband wondered when his wife was going to install the furnace or at least a fireplace. He thought a fireplace would be particularly homey and besides, she hadn’t even made provision for ducting the house. He had tried to point this out once on a particularly chilly morning but she gave him that knowing scowl and he shivered off down the hill. They finally moved in. The woman was greatly pleased with herself, even as she had let the ladies at church know that her husband had been little help indeed.

About a week later, a serious chill set in. The children were cold, the husband was cold, and what was really odd, even the woman was cold. The husband suggested that they get some warmth by finally installing the furnace. After a withering glance, the woman rushed outside, gathered some firewood and started an enormous blaze, right in the middle of their stone kitchen floor. In two minutes, the furniture caught fire and in an hour, the entire house was burnt to the ground.The next week at the ladies’ bible study, the woman explained that she had simply submitted to her husband’s rule of the house and that the furnace had never been installed. She didn’t say any more because she didn’t want to give any of the ladies the wrong idea about her husband.

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