Sitting On the Corner of the Roof

 “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.” 

Proverbs 21:9 (NIV)

   I wasn’t the only person in the long checkout line who tried to casually peek around to see the owner of the woman’s voice. At any given time, there are hundreds of people shopping and talking at this department store. But the one-sided conversation began to feel like an annoying bee that keeps trying to nest in your hair on a hot summer day as you balance on a tall ladder with a paintbrush. You just want it to stop. Immediately.

   The longer this woman spoke, the higher the pitch of her voice. The higher the pitch, the more harsh the comments. These were some of her nicer comments to her husband: “You never take me anywhere. All you do is work in the yard or play golf with your buddies. But THIS woman has needs, too. I need to go shopping. I need to see MY friends. I need to have a social life. Why can’t you understand that?” His response was a mumbled “yes” or “okay” or an occasional nodding of his head. 

   While I admit I had no idea what caused this woman’s observations, I did have a few of my own. First, he HAD taken her somewhere – shopping – which covered two of the  “needs” on her list. Secondly, I silently wondered if she even HAD any friends or social life if she spoke as negatively around them as she did her husband. 

   I glanced one last time at him: shoulders drawn together and hunched over the cart, eyes glancing at her with a silent pleading to at least stop the negative talking until they could be out of the store, teeth clenched together so tightly that water could not get between them. His body language was more deafening than his wife’s shrill voice.

   Solomon must have been married to a woman just like the one I listened to in the checkout line. Not once but four times in Proverbs he wrote about a woman who made him long for solitude in a desert or on the corner of a roof rather than living with her. He even wrote that she reminded him of a constant dripping that wouldn’t stop.

   But Solomon also wrote about a precious woman in chapter 31 of Proverbs. He described her as being like a rare and priceless jewel. She was a woman who worked hard in her home and her community and loved her family but what he admired most about her was her love and reverence for the Lord.

   I wonder . . . if  Proverbs were written about me, what might it say? Would my neighbors look out the window and exclaim “Oops. There’s LeRoy on the corner of the roof of the house again. Must be another crabby, nagging day for Nancy!” Or would they see my love for the Lord and how I am doing everything I can to honor my husband and respect him as Scripture teaches? 

   My prayer for each of you is that, in your marriages, there would be no references to corners of roofs or deserts or constant drips but instead, it would be spoken: “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but SHE is a woman who fears the Lord and is to be praised.”

   Father, forgive me for the times I have spoken to my husband in such a way that would make him want to be on a roof or desert alone. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.  

R.A.P. it up . . . 

Reflect

• Have you ever listened to conversations around you that were like the one described in the devotion?

• Did you consider that you have had similar conversations with your husband without realizing how they sounded?

 Apply

• Memorize Proverbs 21:9. 

• When you are tempted to speak like the quarrelsome wife in Proverbs 21:9, picture your husband sitting on a roof corner rather than with you. 

 Power 

• Proverbs 21:9 (NIV) “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”

• Proverbs 31:30 (NIV) “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

• Proverbs 21:19 (NIV) “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.”