Unshackled Moments ~ December 30 ~ Dare To Be The Light

Imagine a teenage girl from a foreign land swept up with other girls her age. She is carried to a rich man who chooses her over the others, and suddenly she learns that she is to be wed to this man she does not love and had never even met. Her older cousin, whom she lived with because both her parents had died years before, could not stop things or help her in any way other than to advise her to hide her heritage and do her best to please the man. It's a horrid tale to imagine. Would you want to trade places with this girl or have any woman you care about in her shoes?

Some of us have had a rough year. It may even be that there have been times you wondered if God truly cared, understood what you were going through or had just left you twisting in the wind. And yet, I would be willing to bet you had a better year than the the girl in the story I started with. That is not a hypothetical or fictional tale. This girl lived. She was real, and I wouldn't be the least surprised if she felt unloved or deserted by God. What had she done to deserve this fate, and why wouldn't God save her from it? The man she married wasn't only rich, he was the king of Persia. She became the famous Queen Esther, able to save her people from genocide after risking her life by approaching the king without being called for. You can read the tale in the book of Esther in the Bible.

The point is that this was not a fairy tale story. This girl was not rejoicing at being chosen. She was just a girl, and she was chosen to be married to a man who already had many wives and had just banished his main wife for not coming when he summoned her.  The king didn't chose her after a wonderful dance where they clicked and she lost a slipper. He looked at her and chose her for her beauty alone, like a man picking a prostitute. She would be married for life, but he may be bored with her and done with her quickly, which is both blessing and curse as she would no longer be forced to lay with him but would not be free to even talk to, much less love or be loved by, another as long as she lived. This is not a situation you would find yourself in and think your dreams were coming true, that life was going to be wonderful or that you were being blessed of God.

But this nightmare put her in a unique position to bless and help many. She helped save you, because she saved the line from which Messiah came. Without her stepping up, risking death, and asking the king to spare her and her people (coming out as  Jew), Jesus could not have been born of Mary in Bethlehem, and you and I would not know the joy of restoration with our Creator. What if your hard time, your nightmare that seems so far from a blessing and the protection of God actually put you in a place to be the light, help and the one who saved someone by planting the seed of love and truth that sets us free in their life? What if your moment of hell and hopeless struggle set you up to be someone's hero?

Let us look for opportunities in the hard times and dark places to be the light that shows His love, power, glory and way of life. Rather than growing angry and bitter and being allowed to suffer by God, let us be quick to see how we can be of service and of use in the place of suffering. It could very well be that we may look back later and see that we were actually blessed to be a part of something great in someone's life. We might see so much good come out of our struggle that we would, had we all the information in advance, have actually chosen to go through it and volunteered for the nightmare in exchange for being a part of the plan to set the captives free and save the lost. Instead of looking for the light and cursing the dark, we can be the light in the dungeon of despair.

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