Esther was a real woman!

 So did you know that Esther (named Hadassah) was an orphan?  I mean I guess I knew that but I never really thought about all it implied.  What would it have been like to grow up without a mother to teach you and comfort you and model for you feminine strength?  What would it feel like to not have a father to joy in her beauty and teach her about her value as a girl.   And what was it like to be raised by her older male cousin.  Now there is something to chew on.  We don't even know if her cousin Mordecai was married.  We just know he raised her and she became an amazing woman of confident, humble, beauty that drew other people to her without demanding anything.   
How many of us feel orphaned in this life?  Maybe our mother wasn't all we needed her to be.  Maybe she modeled more for us of what not to than anything.  Maybe we struggle even today to know what a real woman truly is.  What is beauty and what makes us feminine?  We live in a world that demands a lot from a woman.  We feel pressured to walk right and look right and fit into a very narrow box.  However, God created us in his image.  Woman wasn’t created last (in the order of creation) as an afterthought of God but as his crown of beauty.  And when it was finished God said “it is good”.  What magnificent words to let sink into our soul.  In God’s eyes we are good!

We are his finishing touch and have a vital role to play.  We offer our beauty and image of God to the world in different ways.  It comes through our smile, through a loving touch, through words of encouragement and our ability to be vulnerable.  These are all ways we leave a feminine fingerprint of God on the world every day.  We offer life and fresh air to people around us and we add our 50% to the picture God gave us when he created man and woman both in his image.  There are things unique about God that only women can show the world. 

The truth is that we are women because God created us that way.  That is what makes us a woman.  It’s not about how we walk or talk or look.  Esther was a woman through and through and she rose from an orphaned girl to a Queen by putting her worth and value in her God.  She rescued the entire Jewish nation by doing something only a woman could have done.

What Makes Us Women?

 So did you know that Esther (named Hadassah) was an orphan?  I mean I guess I knew that but I never really thought about all it implied.  What would it have been like to grow up without a mother to teach you and comfort you and model for you feminine strength?  What would it feel like to not have a father to joy in her beauty and teach her about her value as a girl.   And what was it like to be raised by her older male cousin.  Now there is something to chew on.  We don't even know if her cousin Mordecai was married.  We just know he raised her and she became an amazing woman of confident, humble, beauty that drew other people to her without demanding anything.   
How many of us feel orphaned in this life?  Maybe our mother wasn't all we needed her to be.  Maybe she modeled more for us of what not to than anything.  Maybe we struggle even today to know what a real woman truly is.  What is beauty and what makes us feminine?  We live in a world that demands a lot from a woman.  We feel pressured to walk right and look right and fit into a very narrow box.  However, God created us in his image.  Woman wasn’t created last (in the order of creation) as an afterthought of God but as his crown of beauty.  And when it was finished God said “it is good”.  What magnificent words to let sink into our soul.  In God’s eyes we are good!

We are his finishing touch and have a vital role to play.  We offer our beauty and image of God to the world in different ways.  It comes through our smile, through a loving touch, through words of encouragement and our ability to be vulnerable.  These are all ways we leave a feminine fingerprint of God on the world every day.  We offer life and fresh air to people around us and we add our 50% to the picture God gave us when he created man and woman both in his image.  There are things unique about God that only women can show the world. 

The truth is that we are women because God created us that way.  That is what makes us a woman.  It’s not about how we walk or talk or look.  Esther was a woman through and through and she rose from an orphaned girl to a Queen by putting her worth and value in her God.  She rescued the entire Jewish nation by doing something only a woman could have done. 

Beauty of Esther

So I have been leading a women's Bible study on Wednesday night at our church.  I have so enjoyed going deeper into the amazing book of Esther.  It is the only book in the Bible that doesn't mention the name of God.  Yet his scarlet thread runs so deeply through it.  I never thought about what it would have been like for her to be a Jewish orphan girl among all the harem of King Xerxes.  Here is a girl who grew up with her uncle and never knew the love of a father or had a mother to teach her about beauty.  Yet she enters 12 months of preparations to appear before this king and she manages to win the favor of everyone she came in contact with.  It is so rare for someone to connect with leaders and dignitaries and still have the approval of the women she lived with.  I bet she was pretty cool to be around.  She finally gets her chance to impress the King and could have chose diamonds, gold, silver, fabrics and she only wears what was recommended by the leader of the harem.  She was simple and not materialistic....yet she was well liked by the lowly and the popular.  When the King sees her he is so impressed.  She was humble and pure and lovely to him.  Yet she was intelligent, wise with her words, and scripture says she won the King's favor over all the most beautiful women in the land.  (Esther 2:17)

What is it really that makes a woman beautiful? Aren't we all searcing for it?   What draws people to her and makes them want more? 

In our culture today we are told that it is the perfect body, a lot of money and fame that makes a woman beautiful.  Not so with Esther!  All those who came in contact with her loved her and wanted to be in her inner circle.  Yet she didn't demand or control those around her.  She had a quiet confidence in her God and thus in herself.  And whether people knew it our not it was the "beauty of the Lord" that they were drawn to.  May we all aim to possess that kind of beauty.  Psalm 90:17 "May the beauty of Lord rest upon us and establish the work of our hands".