The drippy wife

The following is an excerpt from a weekly newsletter - "View from Virginia" - that I write for our friends and family.

Proverbs 27:15 - A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day
Proverbs 19:13 - the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping

The bible verses about a contentious wife being like a dripping roof have a whole new meaning to me since we came home to some water damage two days before Christmas. While vacuuming up gallons of water I had some time to reflect on dripping water.

The worst part about a dripping roof is not the water damage, that can be repaired easily enough. No, the worst part of a dripping roof (or complaining wife) is that it makes a horrid stench in the home which affects everyone, not just the person under the drip. A bad spiritual aroma in the home, created by a wife with a grouchy attitude or complaining heart, can spread to everyone and foul the air. Only by hacking out the moldy parts and dragging them out the front door and to the curb can the air be cleared. Sometimes the moldy items have personal value and have soured slowly, so we might not notice and are loathe to let them go, even to the point where we deny the stench or don't even smell it. These are the hardest to remove with our own will. Only the professionals can clean up that kind of mess; the professional cleaning team of the Trinity tears out the rot in our hearts and breathes a fresh air into our lives.