For Such a Time as This

Though I have not actually been able to attend my More Women of Influence class yet, I have listened to the cd lectures and have been keeping up with the Bible reading and notes. Today I was looking back over Esther. Dear, dear, Esther. It seems that everybody loves Esther! I had hoped to be able to do the Beth Moore Esther study by now, but things just haven't worked out. Maybe I can find someone with the DVDs and can work through it myself this summer! At any rate, I was just thinking about Esther's bravery.

Can you imagine being an orphan? At least she had Mordecai to step in and love her and raise her, but I can't begin to imagine what she would have been feeling about not having her parents. She was brave! And then to be summoned away to go live in the palace, to have the pressure of pleasing the king? Brave! Not only that, but being chosen by the king to be his queen. I can't even image what pressures may have come along with that. And then ultimately, the saving of her people. Mordecai angers Haman by not bowing to him. In turn, Haman commits to destroy the Jewish people. Only the Queen can save them - 1. because she is Jewish as well; 2. because she can plead to the king. Mordecai tells her, "And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther's bravery leads her to answer, "then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish." Talk about bravery! And as most of us know the story of Esther, the Jews are saved because of her.

As I read and think about Esther and her bravery (as well as the other qualities she exhibits), I wonder the same for myself. "Am I here 'for such a time as this?'" God has placed each of us where He wants us to be. It is up to us to look to His perfect plan and will and to commit to say, "'if I perish, I perish'" in doing God's will for my life.