I haven't read another chapter yet mostly that is because I am still stewing on the last one.  Ester goes through this process of making a decision, asking for prayers on her behalf and taking action.  I am amazed at how I have read just a few chapters and how much Ester has accomplished.  First she was chosen, which took a year.  Then she became queen.  And now she has to save her people.  But there is no time line on those. 

How did she know that the message from Mordichai was real?  How did she lay out the plan?  How long did it take her? How much did she agonize over the results of her actions?  How many times did she try out the plan only to fail?  While the author has detailed knowledge about Ester, he/she has left out some of the details.  Real Life details that is. 

When I go to a movie, it takes an hour and a half for the boy to get the girl.  An hour and a half and they live happily ever after.  It took me four and a half YEARS to decide I wanted to marry my husband.  YEARS...

When I read a book, it takes a couple weeks to come to a conclusion.  So Ester, in just a few chapters which took me all of 30 mins to read at a slow miserable pace, has been given her fate and is taking action.  Surely...surely...taking leadership roles in my own life will take longer and with more failures than that. 

The actions that I have taken just today are: a) sign back up for weight watchers, b) go to the gym even though I really don't want to c) write out a prayer and stick it to my bathroom mirror that says:

My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and the bad.  I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my Fellows.  Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen

That took me almost a month to accomplish. 

Ester is faced with great terror.  Not just for her people, but for herself.  She is to be executed by the King's order. Great terror...

Fear is a nasty thing.  It twists around inside of me.  It shows its face in so many ways in my life.  The greatest fear I face that manifests repeatedly in my life is abandonment.  And when I believe that someone close to me will leave me...forever, I lose my composure.  When I remember someone who has abandoned me, I feel agony that can surface as anger, sadness, confusion.  Once the wound of abandonment is reopened, it takes a while to heal back again.  And I smart off to my friends.  I cry in my bathroom alone.  I look in Ester to find the answer. 

Ester did two things when she learned of the great threat Haman had established against her.  First she asked for prayers and fasting from Mordachi and his people.  Second she took action ensuring her life from the King.  Prayers and action.  Two constants in my life. 

O Lord hear my prayers.  Heal me where I am hurt.  Give me great strength in times of great fear.  Grant that I may be Your servant to those whom you place in my life.  Thy will, not mine be done. Amen

Prayers and actions. 

Thanks be to God.

So the King Baby turns the power of being King over to his right hand man.  Being totally inexperienced he gives it up to the bad guy.  The bad guy's name is Haagar aka Hilter.  This dude has serious control issues.  He sends out a death sentence for the Jews.  Ester's Uncle Mort tells her to go, go to the King and beg, beg for her life and the lives of her people. 

What must she be thinking? First you tell me not to say anything about who I am and now you tell me to say something.  WTH?  Ester has got to be in a panic.  Here she is finally getting slightly comfortable in her royal surroundings and you want me to throw it all away? 

Life or death dear woman, life or death.  I was threatened with a life or death scenario once.  I was stalked by terror, bewilderment, frustration and despair.  My head was swimming, like I was caught in a spiral of emotions that just got worser.  I chose life.  It meant giving up everything I had known and walking a different path.  It meant having the courage to know the difference.  I didn't actually know the difference I just knew it was something different and anything was better than death! 

Life or death...

Cosmetics...what does that mean?

He found favor with Ester and gave her cosmetics and servants...

Ester's real name is Hadassah, which means myrtle.  Myrtle branches signify peace and thanksgiving.  Hadassah.  If we met a woman with a name as such would we consider her Jewish?  The way I pronounce it in my head the name sounds Arab.  Turns out there is an entire Jewish Women's group called Hadassah.  She is from the tribe of Benjamin, this makes me happy because Benjamin is of Rachel, thus Ester must be a great woman if her lineage is of Rachel.  Rachel was strong, beautiful and patient.  Some of these qualities would make a great queen. 

Bathed in myrrh.  I compare myrrh to Chanel No 5.  It is the most expensive perfume I own and I can only imagine being bathed in it for six months.  A year the women were prepared for King Baby.  They were doused for a year.  I wonder if they are also given a trainer and maybe a shopper who picks out fine clothes for them?  Cosmetics is just the outside of the woman.  It is the "trappings" so to speak.  Something of which I have always struggled with a bit: when to wear make-up, how much to wear, to pluck or not to pluck the eyebrows, what is considered casual, too casual or too formal, jewelry...got lucky with a decent man so most of my jewelry is an easy pick, but every now and again should I wear pearls all the time or just with blue jeans? 

She won him over.  Prior to the cosmetics, she found "favor" with him.  And in the end he loved her because she was kind.  All that war of cosmetics and the reality is he liked her before they were added and because of her insides not her outsides.  My guess is that her outsides matched her insides.  Thus the beauty makes. 

I pray Lord God that I may have my insides match my outsides. 

Thanks be to God.

I started to read the book of Ester.  I remembered my girlfriend and her bible study group were reading it earlier in the semester and wondering why.  What I know of Ester from learning the story a million year ago in Sunday School was that Ester was a jew woman who was a queen who stood up for her people.  The part I couldn't remember was whether or not I had ever actually read the scripture or not.  That is the way Baptists are: our Sunday School is set up so that we can actually get away with knowing the Bible without every reading it.  I know Bible verses by heart from when I was a child that I can say or sing and have no idea what book in the Bible they are in or what they mean in context of the chapter or book. 

So I am trying to take Jane's suggestions and get into the Word.  I read the preface.  I like that no one knows who wrote the Book of Ester.  I like that God is not mentioned anywhere in the book by name.  I like that it is controversial in nature as to whether it should have been included in the canon.  Nothing like a woman to stir the pot a bit. 

Then I read the first chapter coincidentally my stomach began to wrench to the left at the same time.  I was horrified by the passage.  Here is this great King and his great Queen throwin parties for their loved ones and mix in a little alcohol and ego and get a problem.  The King is merry with his wine.  DRUNK.  He was drunk.  He calls for his wife as though she were a trophy to be pulled from a mantle.  He didn't even do it himself, he sent someone to go get her.  While I recognize this passage is a bizillion years old and maybe that is how they did things back then, it is not how we do things now.  She says no, because I truly believe that she was born in 1969 and he freaks.  I mean FREAKS.  Seriously?  This great King in my head has just become King Baby: pitches a fit when he doesn't get what he wants when he wants it.  So King Baby, being the King that he is, removes the hippy chick from her throne.  Why? Because he can.  He sucks.  His evil servant who suggested the removal says that it will set an example for the men to keep thier women in line: barefoot pregnant and in the kitchen.  Seriously? You've got to be kidding me...

Am hoping the story gets better.  If nothing else it got my attention.

Thanks be to God.

So tired of being trapped in my mind.  I finally broke down and asked for help.  My friend Jane is a wonderful woman.  She is crazy as a loon, but a wonderful woman none the less. 

Now that I am finally on the other side of stress: I have started on this path to try to work.  I don't know where God wants me go or be or do.  I just know that I keep waking up in the morning so there must be something for me to do, right? Something other than sending out cyber resumes to cyber companies with no contact in return.  No way of knowing if I am even going in the right direction.  Jane says that God is giving me this time to take care of myself.   

Two folks that have been consistently present in my past ten years on this spiritual journey: God & me.

I have heard it best put by she who will not be named: self care leads to God's will.

It has been a month now...a month.  Mostly what I have accomplished is sleep, watching massive amounts of tv and a little exercise.  I am miserable.  My life is inconsistant and getting more depressing by the second.  So I asked for help.  What else could I do?

Jane Says...

plan your days
get into the Word
journal
make a care plan for Rae
pray, pray, pray
tithe
pray my ass off some more

The reference for this blog: Ecclesiastes 3.