My new year has had quite a foggy start–after holidays with grandkiddos and lots of sickness came strong prescription cough meds AND a book deadline in two weeks!

I haven’t had time or energy to think about resolutions or goals or one word to guide my year.

But I know, from experience, that many of you have thoughtfully made lists and charts and plans for a better you, a better family, a better life, in 2014.

Have you mixed in some reality with your dreams?
Are you reaching for stars you can truly touch?

I’ve been thinking about the woman in Proverbs 31, the woman we all love to hate.

I didn’t meet her until I was well into my 30s. But we’ve only been friends a few years.

She used to really bug me. Too perfect. Never makes mistakes. And she gets up early, well before sunrise, and gets right to work.

Ugh.

But she is the model, I’d been told. So I tried to take her example to heart.

I had my Christian-stay-at-home-mom phase,
my couponing-and-three-store-menu-planning stage,
my make-crafts-and-sell-them phase.

I’ve even had more than one let’s-get-up-before-the-sun-and-get-this-day-going phase.

Nothing stuck.

Sorry, #%@!* Proverbs 31 Woman. I guess we can’t be friends.

But now I see that I was trying to copy that gal’s activities, not her character.

“A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” –Proverbs 31:30

The Proverbs 31 Woman isn’t so #%@!* after all!

Nope. Instead, she’s faithful, diligent, industrious, generous, compassionate, kind, and wise–all virtues the book of Proverbs advises women and men to develop because they honor the Lord and make life work.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” –Proverbs 1:7

Knowledge, says the note in my ESV Study Bible, is a focus on correctly understanding the world and ourselves as creatures of the magnificent and loving God, and wisdom is the acquired skill of applying that knowledge rightly, in godly living.

That’s what my friend the Proverbs 31 Woman is good at, and what I am learning from her. And that’s a realistic goal and plan for any of us, any time of year.

DIANE