Daughters-In-Law

My husband and I have been blessed with two daughters-in-law, the wives of our sons. Both girls are from different backgrounds and even from different parts of our country but they have some things in common. The most important characteristic that they share is their love of the Lord and for that I am thankful. 

As our children were growing up I prayed that they would each find a mate with two qualities: 1. that they would love the Lord their God with all their heart and 2. that they would love their mate more than anyone else in the world. I'm thankful that both of these girls meet those requirements.

 I began praying for our children's future mates when our children were only babies. I prayed that they would have a good childhood and that the Lord would protect and watch over them. Its important to pray for your child's future mate for many reasons, one of them being the fact that they will, one day if the Lord wills it, be one of the parents of your future grandchildren. 

Our daughters-in-law have both been a blessing to us and I am proud to have them as part of our family. Naomi was blessed to have Ruth as a daughter-in-law. Ruth left her own people and stayed with Naomi. She took care of Naomi and worked to provide for her. She listened to Naomi's council and was blessed by the Lord because of her obedience. Ruth was a blessing.

 But not all daughters-in-law are a blessing. In Genesis 26:34-35 we read:

34 When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35 They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

We don't know why they were a 'source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah' because we're not told. But we can gather one clue in the fact that the girls were both Hittites. The Hittites didn't worship the Lord God Jehovah, they worshiped false gods. One source says they worshiped over one thousand different false gods. No wonder Isaac and Rebekah were grieved! They had raised their son to worship the One True God and he chose wives who didn't! 

We see later in Genesis 28 that Esau tries to make up for his poor judgment by marrying a descendant of Ishmael, his uncle.

6 Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,” 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. 8 Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; 9 so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

We are blessed because our sons chose wisely and chose godly girls to be their wives. Because of their choice we aren't grieved like Isaac and Rebekah were but instead we can rest assured that our future grandchildren will be raised to know the Lord God. When it is time for our daughter to choose a husband I know she will be careful to choose a godly man to share her life with and my prayer will be that she is a blessing to her mother-in-law as my daughters-in-law have been to me.