Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.

Proverbs 31:10, RSV

There are fewer and fewer people who remember Mrs. Moudy, but if you were raised in the town I live you were likely raised by someone who does. The reason for this is that Mrs. Moudy taught High School English from the 1930's through the 1950's in Happy, Texas, and those who had her have never forgotten her.

If you have ever had that teacher in school, then you will understand. You remember the one! It was that teacher whom you were sure thought they were the only teacher who taught the only subject in the only class you had. In reality, you had plenty of other teachers in more than enough classes to keep you more than occupied, but this teacher was a tyrant. They made you do homework and that homework cut severely into your leisure time.

My Mrs. Moudy went by the alias of Mrs. Washenfelder in a city 750 miles away from Happy. While the names were different, their M. O.'s were the same for they loaded everyone down with homework, had frequent tests, and then had the audacity to hand out C's to those who made average grades. These were the teachers everyone talked about. You would hear former students warn about them with sly grins on their faces, and current students complain about them with anything but a smile. While you did not actually "hate" them, the words "loath" and "despise" would not have been inaccurate descriptors.

But then you did graduate, despite the Mrs. Moudys and Mrs. Washenfelders, and something very strange happened: They slowly evolved to become something quite different than you had previously imagined. This evolution was slow, maybe first appearing with your freshman English class that was so pitifully easy that you made an A without hardly trying. Or maybe your boss at work complimented you on a report you prepared for an important client. Maybe it was the person who commented on your beautiful handwriting, but whatever the situation, it slowly dawned on you that you had that particular teacher to thank.

And then you began to utter words that you never thought would come from your mouth like, "that teacher wasn't so bad after all" or "Wow! I guess I did learn something from that mean old woman" or even "best teacher I ever had - the world would be better off if everybody had studied English under her." And after awhile the transformation was complete. You realized that what little discipline you had acquired outside of your parents had actually been instilled by that teacher. And of the few teachers whose names you could still remember, the Mrs. Moudys and Mrs. Washenfelders were ones you would never forget.

And though I don't know everything about my own English teacher's background, I do know quite a bit about the "Indominable Mrs. Moudy" (a phrase we owe to Billie Silvey), for Mrs. Moudy was my wife's grandmother. I know that she was a righteous woman who loved the Lord, her family, and her students - in that order. And because she loved God, she felt a keen responsibility to those she was charged with teaching. And though demanding and strict and sometimes indominable, she was a woman who really did love her students, so she made sure that she got the best out of them.

The world would be much better off with a lot more just such righteous women of God, wouldn't you agree?

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gates.

Proverbs 31:30-31