Not for profit?

I think my day is pretty typical of many women.

Your To-do list probably has many of the same things mine does, which include things like washing, ironing and putting away other people’s clothing, cleaning up after them, buying their food, preparing their food, etc etc. etc.

Sometimes at the end of day, you can’t think of one thing you did for yourself (except for maybe brush your teeth– but really that’s for everyone else’s good as much as your own, isn’t it?).

You now have two choices:

A) Be grumpy and a little mopey at the thought of your constant sacrifice for others.

B) Rejoice in your labors.

I’m gonna admit it. I chose option A the other night. And after a good, hard day of work, I wasted it with feeling sorry for myself. I wasn’t very nice to my husband and decided I was going to do something for myself, darn it! So… I took a bath!

And I didn’t enjoy it a bit. I was too busy feeling selfless and being irritated.

A day or two later, instead of slamming me over the head with my sin, God gave me encouragement and understanding through a book I am currently and ravenously devouring, chapter by chapter. (Table in the Mist, by Jeffery Meyers)

Ecclesiastes 4:8 “There is one alone, without companion: he has neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his labors, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. But he never asks, ‘For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?’ This also is vanity and a grave misfortune. Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor.”

Like much of Ecclesiastes, this is a little elusive in its meaning. Jeffery Meyers gives these enlightening words:

“Now Solomon gives us a rare instance of some relative “advantage” or “leverage” or “profit” in human life. It concerns our loving work for another…Working for oneself is vapor but working for others is a great gain. Work has meaning primarily as a way of expressing love, not as a means of accumulating individual wealth.”

“Not as a way of accumulating individual wealth“… this is just the perspecitve needed by a wife and mother who never gets paid a dime for putting in a 14 hour day. Her role, more clearly than most any one’s, is on parr with what Ecclesiastes say is not vapor– it is lasting, it is something of value, it is truth you can hang onto. Is it any wonder then, that this is is the exact opposite of what we hear from the world? Or in our own little heads? If we’re not at a desk with a salary, we’re not really doing anything that worthwhile.

It’s not in human nature to put ‘caring for others’ in bold at the top of our “Most-worthwhile-things-I-can-do-with-my-life” list. That’s why Ecclesiastes warns against being like the one who, for all his labor and toil, in the end gets nothing but envy from his neighbor (Ecclesiastes 4:4).

So, instead of being a crab the next time I’m feeling overwhelmed I’m going to stop, think of Solomon’s words, and remember that caring for others is what God calls meaningful. Take heart, wives and mothers, for all your toiling and depriving yourself, He is pleased with you and He promises a good reward.