Meet Hadar

Hadar is the Hebrew word in Proverbs 31:25: strength and honour are her clothing. The Psalms use the same word for what God himself wears. It is worn, not earned. Its five letters are five women of the Bible: Hannah, who prayed; Abigail, who made peace; Deborah, who arose; Anna, who waited; Ruth, who stayed. Each has a day in the forty. Hadar is forty days for a woman who has prayed for everyone in her house and seldom for herself. It moves in four stretches of ten: God, sought before anything else; the heart, the woman beneath the doing; the people given to you; and the calling, the help you were made for. Ten of the forty carry the words of Christ, set apart on a gold face of their own, and most of them were spoken to a woman: Martha, the woman at the well, the woman who touched his garment, the woman who loved much, Mary at the tomb. Each morning opens on one passage of the King…