Good morning! 
    Today's reading took me to Proverbs 12:2  "An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones."    Now there is a challenge, how to be an excellent wife?  What do you think an excellent wife is?  If you are married what does your husband think an excellent wife is? Are there any areas you need to work on?  Some might say, turn to Proverbs 31, there you will see a virtuous woman, pattern yourself after her, and that would be a good place to start the challenge of becoming an excellent wife.   We need to remember that we are a work in progress.
    Perhaps there are some wives in scripture that stand out to you as being excellent.  What is it in those women that you admire and want to emulate?   I have been recently challenged by an article Family Life: Articles on Marriage published called:  "15 things wives should stop doing" by Mary Marmoyeux  One was: 9. Don’t make your husband earn your respect.  Many women think, I’ll respect him when he earns it. But there’s a reason that Ephesians 5:33 says, “Let the wife see that she respects her husband.”  As one friend said: “If women could learn to understand that respect is a man's native tongue, that it absolutely heals his heart and ministers to him like nothing else, it would make the biggest difference in the world.”
    An excellent wife Solomon tells us is a crown to her husband.  A crown distinguishes one man a part from another.  He is royalty, he has a position or a standing in the world.  A man with a crown is given a place of honor.  What I find interesting is that she is the crown.  She brings this royal position to him.
    Solomon was the king and he had wives, we are told 700 of them and 300 concubines...his wives led him astray from God.  (See I Kings 11) They caused him to bow down to foreign gods and he even built alters to them.  He was not a man after God's own heart like David his father.  His wives had great influence on him and caused him rottenness in his bones, rather than being a crown and giving him a place of honor.   I Kings 11:6 "So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and did not wholly follow the LORD."    Solomon chose to follow his wives rather than the LORD.  Is there anything I am doing, that you are doing that would lead your husband away from the LORD rather than to him?
    As a wife we have great influence on our husbands, since men today only have one wife at a time. We can be excellent and bring him favor but we also have a choice to bring shame, like rottenness to his bones.  I believe we want to bring him a crown of honor and not shame.  We need to ask ourselves is there anything in my life that is causing me to bring shame to my husband?  Any bad habits that need to be nipped in the bud?   Any course that I'm on that is leading my husband and myself away from God and His perfect will?   If so, will I repent: turn around and change directions?
     Let's be a crown to our husband and not rottenness in his bones.