It was still dark, and all was quiet in the house. I had just finished preparing my husband’s breakfast and lunch for the day before he left for work. Though it was peaceful in the house, my heart was full of despair. While sipping my coffee, in the dark, I began to listen to Ecclesiastes on my audio Bible app. These following verses jumped out and caught my heart. I realized it reminded me of my own thoughts over the years and convicted me of the attitude I had towards plural marriage at that very moment in time.
I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. Ecclesiastes 2:18-23
I’ve looked at all of the years my husband and I have shared together- the dark valleys that we’ve walked and where we are now- I struggled with the idea that someone will come in and reap the benefits of the marriage and family we have, the people we have grown to become, all while she would not have had to experience those hard times we endured to get there. I could not understand how to joyfully help someone else thrive in a marriage to my husband while I was still there. Why should I share the wisdom I’ve gained of how my husband responds to things to benefit her? Or share the things I have learned to make him happy, so she in return can make him happy herself?
This also is vanity and a great evil.
I had lost focus and began to view my marriage with my husband as a burden. I no longer felt joy being a helper to him. I felt that my “toil” was worthless because he was seeking another to bring him joy. I felt that she would come in and I would become second fiddle fading into dimming light- little did I realize, I was stepping back into the darkness all on my own.
He never pushed me aside or made me feel less special. He did not value me or the years we shared any less. It was I that prefabricated my false sense of loss and worthlessness.
I know it comes down to my perspective and ultimately ends with how I respond.
I continued to through the entire book of Ecclesiastes and arrived at these verses.
There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun. Ecclesiastes 8:14-15
How many precious gifts have been given to me in my life that I am completely undeserving of? My husband certainly being one of those. Yet, why have I struggled with not wanting to share the blessing of a wonderful husband with the lady to come into my husband's life, after me?
Really, it doesn’t matter if the woman coming into the family deserves my husband’s love or not! It doesn’t matter if she is a blessing to me or not. I am to be joyful- in my role, in my place, in my standing in my husband’s heart- and that blesses him. I am his helpmate.
So, perspective... come find me eating, drinking and being joyful in the sunshine toiling in the beautiful role as a wife and a helper to my husband, all the days of my life. And maybe, just maybe, God will bless me with a friend that will happily toil with me.
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