“And who knows but
that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
(Esther 4:14)
“For such a time as this you were born.” Those were the lyrics to the first song
playing on my new CD as I sank lower into the soothing warmth of the tub. As I sat and listened to the lyrics, I began
to cry. As I soaked in the warmth of the
bath I had drawn, I sobbed tears of pain, tears of grief, tears of relief,
tears from depths of my soul that had never been touched until then. Just before drawing the bath, I had looked in
the mirror for the first time in days.
The woman in the mirror looked haggard, disheveled, weary, and years
older than before. That woman in the
mirror was me, but it was not a picture of myself I had ever imagined
seeing. This was a self completely
depleted, completely alone in the world, completely and utterly void of any
human concerns for that moment in time.
The above paragraph is something I wrote after the death of
my first husband. At just 31 years of
age, I was a widow. It was a time in my
life that I practically stood outside my body looking at the events that had
transpired. God sustained me. God provided.
God foreknew. I knew at that
moment that God would carry me through all things in life. No matter how daunting the trials I would
face, God would be there. Today, I hold
to that promise. For such a time as
this, God has been preparing me, pruning me and instructing me so that I would
be ready for the task at hand. Not so I
am able to bear the burden alone, but so I know how to walk in solidarity with
my savior knowing He is Lord.
Lord, help me to keep
my focus entirely on You and not on the circumstances of my life. I praise you for the assurance that you go before me in all things.
