A young lady in New Haven

We're finishing up Proverbs this week on the RMMR schedule, and you had to know that we couldn't pass up the opportunity of pouncing all over the Proverbs 31 Woman. So let me put her on a pedestal before you and command you to be like her. Isn't that helpful? Don't you feel encouraged?

In one way or another, I'm going to fall short of the proverbial example, and I'm unspeakably thankful that God adopts me because of Christ's reconciling righteousness, not because of how well I measure up to nameless perfection. However, knowing that my justification is not based on my works, it is still a good (and required) thing to persevere in becoming the lovely, the trustworthy, the proverbial Proverbs 31 Woman. To encourage all of us on our pilgrimage, we thought to put before you the examples of several woman who exampled what it meant to strive after righteousness, keeping in mind that when you find someone you want to be like, you do what they do.

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"They say there is a young lady in [New-Haven] who is loved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world," wrote Jonathan Edwards about thirteen-year old Sarah Pierrepont. Several years later Jonathan and Sarah would marry. Their marriage lasted thirty-one years until his death, during which they had eleven children, several of whom died young.

Sarah Edwards was a remarkable woman, and three paragraphs cannot suffice to give her biography. So I would point you here, here, and here (second paragraph in) for further in-depth and fascinating reading.

She was self-controlled, yet passionate about Christ. She prayed for her husband and children. She managed her husband's household, leaving him free to dedicate himself solely to his labors. She hosted frequent guests. She traveled. She was a wife. She was a widow. She had babies. She saw daughters married. She saw daughters buried. Her husband was the dearly respected leader. Her husband was fired. She was "afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." (2 Cor. 4:8-11)

My first instinct is to think that she was a freak of nature, one of those people that God just gifts, an 18th century female Apostle Paul. I'm pretty sure that's mostly lazy excuse-making on my part. If Rachael Ray were my hero, I would cook a lot, travel to restaurants, wear a certain style of clothes, have cute catch-phrases, and so on. I would want to be like her. Sarah Edwards is imitable, too--she cried and cried to God for His Spirit, and He answered her. We must not allow ourselves cowed by her legacy. She might seem to be perfect in the written records of her descendants--she wasn't. She trusted a mighty, powerful, good God, who is just as attentive to our souls' cries as He was to hers. If we seek him, He will be found. If we cry to Him, He will answer. Let's follow her example.