I confess.  I grew up on a residential block in the suburbs with mostly boys.  There was one girl but she left for the summers to live with her grandparents. I rarely saw her. So, I naturally learned and enjoyed the games of the boys. Even the habit of combing my hair seemed like time wasted from playing baseball for hours on end. I had my own ball glove and was determined to be the best; not just hold my own on our makeshift field of play.  On a break from sports, we rode bikes with playing cards clothes pinned to the spokes to sound like motorcycles.  We built forts and defended them with play pistols holstered to our shorts. Some of us had Roy Roger rifles. Our bikes then became “horses” complete with ropes tied to the handle bars for reins.  Yes, this took effort but we steered with ropes!

Barefoot mostly, dressed in shorts and t-shirts with stains from yesterday’s lunch, we would come home at dusk, dirty and sweaty for supper.  We then were forced to take a bath to rinse off the day’s play although some of it stained the souls of our feet from running on blacktopped streets that melted slightly from the Oklahoma summer heat of the sun.  Yes, you had to be quick with your steps to walk on the molten lava of our streets!

As I transitioned from elementary school to junior high, changes in my boyish tendencies of lack of care concerning how I looked, transitioned as I saw other girls from other schools come together for the junior high experience. To me, they were obsessed with brushing their hair and carried multiply cans of hairspray!  My mom, a woman of faith, led me to the importance of being a young lady of good character which to her also included taking care of my outward appearance a bit more. As an “Avon Lady,” she introduced me to makeup of which I revolted against. “Just try a little lip gloss, at least,” I remember her saying often to my “natural woman” ways in that season of my life.  I’m laughing now at the memories of my previous childhood. And, I still favor lip gloss only!

So, the story of Esther, a beautiful woman of faith, being forced into a harem for the King to be made “beautiful” by his standards by ordering a FULL YEAR of beauty treatments is downright appalling to me! But that was the evil culture and customs of the Persians. (Is this so different from today’s standards for women?) Esther, with wise Mordecai’s leading and protection, was encouraged to do what she was told for the good of God’s people. However, Mordecai’s concern for Esther is evident as we find him pacing daily in front of the castle for word of her!

In today’s passage we see the hand of God begin His orchestration to save His people from massacre by putting Esther in a position of influence to the Persian king.  In fact, evil doers who want to assassinate the king will be stopped by Mordecai as a first step to get closer to the king. Mordechai daily “kept his ear to the ground,” so to speak, for word of her safety and situation.  Because of this; he hears of the evil plot against the king. Upon hearing, he tells his beloved Esther to tell the king immediately!  This is Mordechai’s “such a times as this” moment for him!  Our God is an awesome God! There is no one like our God!

Read on as “the plot” thickens!

Esther 2

Esther Made Queen

Later when King Xerxes’ fury had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed about her. ² Then the king’s personal attendants proposed, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. ³ Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let beauty treatments be given to them. ⁴ Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This advice appealed to the king, and he followed it.

⁵ Now there was in the citadel of Susa a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, named Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, ⁶ who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, among those taken captive with Jehoiachin king of Judah. ⁷ Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This young woman, who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died.

⁸ When the king’s order and edict had been proclaimed, many young women were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king’s palace and entrusted to Hegai, who had charge of the harem. ⁹ She pleased him and won his favor. Immediately he provided her with her beauty treatments and special food. He assigned to her seven female attendants selected from the king’s palace and moved her and her attendants into the best place in the harem.

¹⁰ Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background, because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. ¹¹ Every day he walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her.

¹² Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. ¹³ And this is how she would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. ¹⁴ In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name.

¹⁵ When the turn came for Esther (the young woman Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. ¹⁶ She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

¹⁷ Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. ¹⁸ And the king gave a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and distributed gifts with royal liberality.

Mordecai Uncovers a Conspiracy

¹⁹ When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate. ²⁰ But Esther had kept secret her family background and nationality just as Mordecai had told her to do, for she continued to follow Mordecai’s instructions as she had done when he was bringing her up.

²¹ During the time Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers who guarded the doorway, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. ²² But Mordecai found out about the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the king, giving credit to Mordecai. ²³ And when the report was investigated and found to be true, the two officials were impaled on poles. All this was recorded in the book of the annals in the presence of the king.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God is at work in Mordecai and his adopted daughter Esther.  It is Mordecai who knows God is at work in Esther, raising her to a royal position for God’s purpose and plan to save His people.

Does God work through us like He did through Mordecai and Esther?  Absolutely! There is no one like our God who is sovereign over all people, circumstances, and situations that seem to us as spontaneous or even ridiculous at the time. God uses all we face in this world for His purpose to teach us and mature our faith in Him—a beautiful work of art with His heart!  God is in all the details when we look closely. God is over all who want to distract us and pull us away from Him. God is God and He never changes in His love for us.  God loves all He has created. God has a plan for each one of us, not to harm us, but to give us hope and a beautiful future with Him.  Embrace the beauty of the truth of God!

How about we look at our surroundings and your current situation right now from God’s perspective and view? How could God use us? Perhaps God has placed us in our jobs, schools, or families, for such a time as this, to reach someone for Jesus. Let us pray to be bold with the confidence of Christ in us who demonstrated by His example the compassion of God to the world as He relentlessly loved, spectacularly healed, and forever forgave as he led lost and broken people to God. Christ in us—that’s the secret, writes Paul to the church of hope and His beautiful glory seen in us! Colossians 1:27. So, we share what God has done in us for truth is beautiful and stands out from the ugly lies of the world around us.  There is a stark difference when God is in it—and in us!

Encourage others to look to Jesus as we look to Him, our beautiful Savior and Lord!  I am recalling a chorus of my youth;

“Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All his wonderful passion and purity,
O thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.”

THIS is the Ultimate Beauty Secret!  Real beauty is a work of our Savior and Lord who lives in us, refining, molding, and shaping us to be all God created us to be—for such a time as this!  All for our good and His glory!  Beautiful!

Lord,

Thank you for teaching us that all of us have purpose. None of our previous experiences are not wasted on teaching us truth.  Truth is beautiful.  Those who live truth are beautiful.  I’ve seen with my own eyes in my family who believes in you and in all the mentors you sent to me in my lifetime.  Lead me, Lord as you refine my nature, until you are seen in me.

In Jesus Name, Amen