MIND AND SPIRIT

This field was once full of green life and now it has been scraped bare we are questing to have more big green-houses to grow hot house tomatoes etc. Everywhere we drive there are changes with more and more townhouses and new shopping centers. We have such potential to build and we even have town planners but as our roads become busier and we often find ourselves rushing here and there; I find I just want to slow everything down.

I was leading our Bible study yesterday on the book of Esther and had a book from the library which I wanted to share some thoughts from. But I left it to the morning, yes I got caught up in watching the Olympics the night before, but the morning was chaos as the frig. had stopped working and had to be pulled out and everything taken out. There was the last minute items I had to buy from the store as we meet to study but also to contribute items to the food bank.
I had to make two trips because the first I forgot my money and the second time I ended up in a long line.

Esther is an easy book to read about a beautiful Jewish girl who wins the heart of the King and becomes queen; hiding her identity as a Jew. We reflected on this story and on the role of women today and what allows us to fall into a role that is expected of us? How are women valued today in our society and in our religion? Esther's claim to fame was her beauty and her ability to please. We see the flaws in Esther's character brought out as she lives a life of comfort and pampering forgetting her Jewish roots. She lost her true identity and her religious traditions.
She enjoyed a privileged lifestyle until the existence of the Jewish nation was threaten with annihilation and she has to risk going before the king when he has not summoned her and thus risks her life and also she has to admit she is a Jew.
"And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"

She now displayed a depth of character that did not depend on her beauty alone but on political savvy, courage and wisdom. This is one book in the Bible where God is not mentioned but yet he works as he reveals to each one of us, male or female, gifts that we have not used. There may be a time in our lives when we are called to risk the opinions that others have of us and to confront a wrong.

My mind tells me I should have done better and been better prepared but the spirit reminds us "God is our refuge and our strength" Psalm 46:1