These last several weeks have been busy, so not much--okay, anything--has been posted by me. However, this does not mean that life has overwhelmed me to the point where I have not been able to put my nose in the Bible as I've been traipsing off to doctor appointments, hospitals or sitting with my niece. I have. Not only has my nose been in the Bible, it has been in one of the most fascinating books I have ever studied....Esther. A book where the Lord is not seen or mentioned but his hand is all over the events that are happening.
It's tough being a woman, Beth Moore tells me through my ear wigs sitting in the cardiologist’s office, in another woman's shadow. Wow! I am the oldest of four children, two of the younger ones are boys and the third is an only sister. This statement by Mrs. Moore, never really hit home the first couple of times I heard it, but this time something resonated in my soul and it had to do with a conversation my sister and I had several years ago.
I forget how Toni and I came to be talking about our childhood, but we were one day when she told me she always felt it was difficult to live up to what I had done before her. When I asked her what she meant by that her answer was simple; I was the first born, therefore got to do everything well before her. I was an Honor Society Student, she wasn't as interested in learning as she could have been and while her marks moved her from one grade to the next they weren't as good as mine. She became a cheerleader for basketball; I was a cheerleader for basketball--first. She went through a whole list that she had accumulated over the years of things she felt I had done first or better than she had. How difficult it has been for her through the years to live in my shadow.
My long shadow. The shadow that takes care of parents, siblings, nieces. The shadow that steps in when one of them is having trouble and fixes what is wrong and helps it not happen again. The shadow that is able to put a large holiday meal on the table with the same ease as putting a normal weeknight dinner on the table. The shadow that keeps the household on track, takes her mother to appointments and for lab work, worked 3-12 hour shifts a week, directs a Bible study every Tuesday morning, and feeds the leaders of the Bible study Tuesday afternoons, and in my spare time is the nurse in charge of her handicapped daughter when one is unavailable. It never dawned on me what she was attempting, or even wanted; to be was a miniature version of me. It left me asking why anyone would want to be me.
Beth Moore put this into perspective for me as I sat listening, enthralled by what was being said at this time to the point I was almost unable to take notes. She says this: "Some of our biggest problems in being a woman are other women!" But, in studying Esther, we will learn about our destiny; God cannot fulfill our destiny without us. There are times when God steps in and says this is covenant and I'm going to do it whether you like it or not--Moses being anesthetized and the Lord cutting covenant with him, for example, or the parting of the Red Sea. Then there are times when God is back there working things out and a person must place his or her trust in his providence without seeing a miracle.
I now look forward to this study and finding ways through it that I can show my sister that she is her own woman. If she were to sit down and really read her Facebook postings from friends, she would see that others walk in her shadow; women she knows, women she works alongside, women whose children are raised and out of the house or at least in college. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen them say to her "I don't know how you do it....working full time with a handicapped child. I don't think I could do what you do every day."
Why study Esther? First and foremost, because it is God's word. But also to model submission and obedience to those around us....those as close as, well, a sister.
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