I felt drawn to this part of the verse today. If a virtuous woman is worth more than rubies, I would need a better understanding of how much rubies are worth, before I could really comprehend how much a virtuous woman was worth.

The first thing I did was take a look at how many times the word “rubies” was used in the Bible, and what else the Bible had to say about them. Using the same website from before, I looked up the word “rubies” and found it was used in the King James Bible 6 times.

In Job 28:18, Proverbs 3:15, and Proverbs 8:11, we see three times that wisdom is worth more than rubies. In Proverbs 20:15, we see that knowledge is worth more than rubies. In Proverbs 31:10, we see that a virtuous woman is worth more than rubies. Lamentations 4:7 also mentions rubies, but I felt like it was talking more about the color, as part of a description. So how valuable were they then, and how valuable are they now? I mean, when I think of valuable things in the terms of material worth, I think of gold or diamonds.

So, I started with a local jewelry store, and asked how did rubies compare to diamonds and gold. I was surprised to find out that rubies are rarer than diamonds, and considered of a higher worth. So, I decided to do some research on my own, and ended up at the website for the American Gem Trade Association. According to the website, as late as 1550, “the finest one-carat ruby cost eight times more than a comparable-quality one-carat diamond”. Later, around 1894, “the same ruby was only two times as expensive as its diamond equivalent”. Since the worth of rubies has diminished over the last couple of centuries, it makes me wonder how much more they were worth before then. Which makes me think that rubies must have been a big, big deal in Biblical times, even more so than diamonds, gold, and other things.

But then that made me think of the worth of women in general, how our society views them, the lies we hear, the lies we believe, the lies we tell ourselves. How many women right now believe they are of little or no worth? How many societies, cultures, and religions still treat their women as property? How much do we value women?

I didn’t really know where I was going with this post when I started. But as I sit here and think more on this verse, I think there are many women around the world that could benefit from hearing how much worth they have, and how much God loves them. Too often, women are treated like sex symbols, property, slaves, or inferior humans, and they believe the lies. They believe they have no worth, because society tells them that they have no worth. But it is a lie…

Do you feel worthless? Do you feel like what you do has no value? House wives in particular are prone to falling for this lie, especially after toiling all day making meals, doing laundry, wiping noses, working all day, only to be asked at the end of the day…”So what DID you DO all day?” Since all the things I do today, are basically all the things I did yesterday, and the day before, sometimes, it can feel like there is no value, or no worth to what I do. But, it has worth to God!

I personally believe that everyone is called to be a missionary, but we are all called to different mission fields. And sometimes, your “mission field” is the family you live in. For years, I have felt that my children that were growing, and developing an understanding of God WERE my mission field. These children do not belong to me anyway, they are “property” of God’s, and HE has trusted me to raise them up, and one day, to hand them back over to Him. I worry sometimes, about the condition that I will give them back in. But I struggle each day to maintain the goal of keeping the focus on Him, even though I don’t always succeed as well as I would like.

Raising children, and keeping a home, ARE worthwhile pursuits, regardless of what society says. I may not have a perfect home, I might burn supper sometimes, I might even have an entire society of dust bunnies in residence under my sofa. God does not call me to be perfect, but He does call me. There may be days when I get discouraged, and feel like what I do has no importance, and feel like all I am doing is “shoveling snow in a snowstorm”, but as long as I keep my focus on Him, I have worth. And the more virtuous I become, the more strong, efficient, and able I become, the more worth I have. May I one day be more valuable then the most precious ruby…

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