Godly Woman Part 4: Strength and Dignity

She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.  ~ Proverbs 31:25

So way back in the day (read: summer), I had this super awesome vision of a series of posts on one of my favorite topics: the lovely Proverbs 31 woman. I planned out the whole series, but I only got around to writing out all of an intro,  part 1, part 2, and part 3. I like this scripture too much to just skip out on it, so I'm back with parts 4 - 8, with a couple surprise special posts thrown in. Get excited (I am!). 

So today, we're starting with some hard hitting real talk: this article. 

Basically the cliff's notes version is that there are fewer men in the church, and that less men are seeking godly marriages/godly wives. 

So I'm going to do a bit of front-porching here: I hate talking about this publicly. This is one of the areas I struggle in the most, and it exposes a lot of the ways I need to lean on the Lord. But if it's hard for me, it may be hard for some of you, and I'm praying that by talking about it honestly, we can encourage each other in our walks with God (and boost our strength and dignity a bit in the process!). 

Basically, this article is a worst nightmare for a single, Jesus-loving, diet coke-drinking Californian med student like me. One thing I deeply desire for my life is a spiritual partner which whom I can pursue and glorify the Lord. Growing up, I always assumed that that would be fulfilled in the form of an upstanding Christian husband (and let's face it, I probably wanted him to be cute, funny, and smart too). After spending much time practicing my faith without the support of strong Christian friends in middle school and high school, this seemed like the perfect solution: the Lord would provide me with the perfect partner so that I would not be alone in pursuing the Lord again. My ultimate goal was to not have to stand up for my faith by myself. My strength and dignity came from the fact that any isolation I felt in my faith would be temporary, and that the days to come would look exactly as I had planned them. When it started to become clear that maybe things weren't going as I planned, I felt totally off balance and shaken up. I spent time alternating between questioning the Lord's plan for my life and trying to find a way to make my own plan happen even if it didn't jive with the Lord's. I still do this. And this raises the big question: 

How do we have strength and dignity when the days to come aren't what we expected and don't fulfill our hopes? 

There are lots of things we could talk about here, but for me, it can be distilled down to believing one small fact: 

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:19

When we trust the Lord to meet our needs, it is so much easier to be strong, dignified, and joyful. And the Lord doesn't just tell us to trust Him without evidence; He gives us example after example in His scripture and through the lives of those around us. When we change our plans for the Lord's plans, we can laugh at days to come because we know that the Lord plans for our good. To be consistently strong and dignified, there aren't short cuts. We have to trust that the Lord will do as he says, and exchange our plans for the Lord's. 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ~ Romans 8:28