Taking care of business

So my husband left for a road trip and every married woman I come in contact with who finds out about it has the assumption that I will get so much done around the house while I've got it to myself. (I won't lie, I do have some small projects planned. Hopefully I will not sit and watch TV and DVD's all week.) But I found it so interesting that every female had almost the exact same comments. And it got me thinking, why do we all do this?

So here's what I think. I have been reading Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge and one of the things they talk about is that a woman is a "sustainer beside him" to her husband.

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. "It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]" Gen. 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is "notoriously difficult to translate." The various attempts we have in English are "helper" or "companion" or the notorious "help meet." Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat...disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing "One day I shall be a help meet?" Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it "sustainer beside him."

The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately.

Most of the contexts are life and death, by the way, and God is your only hope. Your ezer. If he is not there beside you...you are dead. A better translation therefore of ezer would be "lifesaver." Kenegdo means alongside, or opposite to, a counterpart.

(Page 31-32)

So...when one's husband goes away, we have to find something else to take care of, since the principle object of our care-taking doesn't need us for the moment. Just my thoughts...