Always a bride

_Bride like Esther. 

Esther was taken from her home and after a year of beauty treatments was finally presented to King Xerxes who is described as "furious and burning with anger". SAY WHAT?! Don't sign me up for THAT! He sent dispatches to all of the kingdom proclaiming that every man should be the ruler over his own household after his authority was "threatened" by the previous Queen. [Technically, she only refused to come to him when he called for her...….yikes!]

How do you think Queen Esther must have felt? Did she have plans? She must have had some idea of what she thought her life was going to look like until she was summoned away to be placed in front of a domineering King. 

I would have expected her behavior to be much different. But instead, she reminds me a lot of my other favorite in the Bible...Daniel. He too was forced in more ways that one to leave his prior life and plans behind. But just like Esther- he thrived!

Friends, we have a choice. Let me repeat that again. I have a choice. You have a choice. WE HAVE A CHOICE. We can survive or thrive. Yes, some days surviving is the victory and that is the best we can do. But let that not be the goal. 

I want to be like Esther who "pleased him and won his favor". I imagine she had to make many choices whether she would complain, sulk, and cry or choose gratitude, love and kindness. 

Yes we know that she was beautiful physically. [Just today, Hadleigh asked google to show her a picture of Queen Esther..lol]. But oh, how "the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval". I am sure her attitude contributed greatly to the King's feelings. 

If your plans have changed and your vision ahead is something you would have never imagined...perhaps, just on the horizon, you  may be presented with an opportunity where you can be Queen and save a nation. All by choosing to thrive. 

I am so grateful to have the opposite of King Xerxes for my husband. But I don't want to take him for granted. I will have many posts to come about Jerry- but he will forever be my groom. I want to hold onto the moment where he was my groom and I was his bride. That is why this category will be called _Bride like Esther instead of _Wife like Esther. Every day I'd marry him all over again. 

​_Bride like Esther.