Clothed in strength

Clothing is the thing you put on before you face people. The woman of Proverbs 31 gets dressed like everyone else — but what she wears, the writer says, is strength and honour. Not armour; she is not braced for the day. Clothed. It fits her. She moves easily in it.

And then the astonishing second half: she shall rejoice in time to come. Other translations say she laughs at the days ahead. Not because her future is guaranteed smooth — no woman’s is — but because the One who dressed her this morning will be there in every tomorrow she is tempted to fear.

Whatever today asks of you — the caring, the working, the holding-together of things that would quietly fall apart without you — you do not have to manufacture the strength for it. It is given, like clothing laid out. Put it on, and let the days to come hear you laugh.