As I mentioned earlier this week, I've been thinking a lot about Ruth. I've glanced through it a few times more since I last posted on it. I've been meditating on the lines that really stuck out to me before and I underlined.

Yesterday I was thinking of Esther for some reason too. Esther- yes- the classic favorite character of every young noble Christian girl. For that reason, I sort of didn't make a frenzy of it in the past. Yes, I liked it, and I love Mordecai's challenge to her ("Perhaps you were brought to the palace for such a time as this"), but the idea of a young girl who is so pretty she wins a beauty pageant and becomes queen. It just didn't quite capture me.

But she was on my heart- mostly because Ruth and so many happenings in and around my life lately have me asking anew, "What does a great wife look like? What does a great woman look like?" Considering Ruth, I naturally began to think of Esther, another woman given her own book in the Bible to tell her story.

As I was reading it on the bus yesterday, I saw her quite differently than I have before. Esther was selected because she was beautiful. She didn't enlist or apply... as far as I know. She'd suffered the loss of both her parents at a young age. By being selected, she was brought into a harem. She was to spend one night with the King, and then perhaps never another. She was going to spend the rest of her life living in a harem... as far as I can interpret it.. Esther was about to lose her virginity to a King and spend the rest of her life as one of his concubines, if not his Queen. It's not all as glamorous as we tend to think. There is so much risk, and borderline scandal it seems to me.

She wasn't in a neat and easy, padded place. She was in a very messy situation. And it says she listened to Mordecai and obeyed, 'as she always did.' My favorite part is when she is about to go in for her one night with the King, and she is allowed to bring whatever she wants, and she asks the Eunich who has been over her (and has favored her from the start- another thing I just loved) what she should bring- and she brings only one thing- exactly as he has instructed her. She finds advisors... and she listens to them.

Another thing that really struck me about the story this time, Esther actually commands Mordecai after she has become the Queen. How wild is that? She has a new role of authority. Even in her command, she is actually obeying his pleading to her... but still. She tells him to return and to fast with the other Jews for 3 days and nights, as she does the same with her ladies. I don't exactly have an opinion or a neat box for this, but it just struck me. Her boldness and authority. This strange change.

Furthermore, she broke the law. She says it that plainly- it was breaking the law to walk in to the King in the Innermost Court without being summoned. This young woman obeys so perfectly, and then she breaks the law at a critical moment.

I'm not getting any goofy ideas here. But what I am getting is that both Ruth & Esther had some common qualities. They were incredibly surrendered to an older advisor. They sought guidance. They honored, through obedience. They both were strong. Ruth was told to return to her people, but she refused... and it was righteous. Esther commanded Mordecai. She broke the law and approached the King without being called...and it was her glory. They had boldness, courage.

Both were in semi-scandalous, messier situations than we first think or express. Things weren't neat and perfect for them. One a widow, the other an orphan and near-harlot. Both were in the line of Christ.

Out of it all, I read that great women have a surrendered and trusting heart, they seek guidance. And they have courage. They are committed to a people bigger than themself. Both make a verbal commitment to a people.