Tales of the Restoration: Stepmother Superhero

I have a new superhero.

There are plenty of examples of wicked stepmothers. Stepmother heroes are much more difficult to find, but I think I just stumbled across one.

Better yet, my new stepmom hero lived during the time of the restoration, the time I have been learning about, and using as a model.

When Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king, Artaxerxes was the king.  His father was Xerxes, the King Xerxes who made Esther queen.  That makes Esther Artaxerxes' father's wife -- his stepmother!

Listen the this quote from Halley's Bible Handbook, p235.
"Esther most probably was still alive, and an influential personage in the palace, when both Ezra and Nehemiah went to Jerusalem. Our guess is that we have Esther to thank for Artaxerxes' kindly feeling toward the Jews and his interest in having Jerusalem rebuilt."

Picture this, the mild mannered queen stepmother glides quietly along the passages of the women's palace. Few know that sweeping red cape she wears is not merely the royal garb of a queen, it marks her as SUPER STEPMOM! In her role as Super-Queen-Stepmother she changes the course of history, again.

We don't have proof that Esther was the behind the scenes force that moved the powerful hand of the king, but she very well might have been. Nehemiah chapter 2 makes a point of mentioning that the queen was sitting beside the king when Nehemiah asked for leave to go the Judah. Could it be that the older queen Esther was tutoring her young successor in the art of moving the hand of a king? If so, the young queen learned her lesson well. Maybe she took a lesson from Esther, when she diverted the king's attention away from the weighty political issues associated with helping a troublesome ancient enemy rebuild the wall around their city. It was simple. All she had to do was whisper in the king's ear, "ask Nehemiah how long he will be gone". Maybe.

Maybe Esther didn't say a word. Maybe her Jewish identity combined with her winsome personality were enough to give the King a positive feeling toward the Jews and want to help them, reversing the edicts of earlier Persian monarchs. Probably Esther never even realized the full extent of the impact she had. Wouldn't it be great to sit down for tea with queen Esther in Heaven and ask her to tell the whole story, now that she knows it, complete with the details women crave?

No matter how she did it,  I love the idea that Esther's influence extended well beyond the events in the book of Esther, into her stepson's life, and cleared the way for the rebuilding of the wall in Jerusalem.

It is too soon to know what influence we will have. We may never know how our modeling impacts the generations that follow us and influences the choices they make. Our job is to be the simple people God calls us to be in the life he gives us to live.

Futility

fu-tile/ˈfyutl, ˈfyutaɪl/ Show Spelled[fyoot-l, fyoo-tahyl] 

–adjective

1. incapable of producing any result; ineffective; useless; not successful (definition from dictionary.com)

 

 

Futility was one of the evils that rushed into human lives as soon as man sinned in the Garden of Eden. Every human feels ineffective, useless or not successful sometimes. Work feels futile. Trying to restore a relationship feels futile. Parenting rebellious kids feels futile. 

 

Sometimes I think the role of stepmother is a synonym for futile.

 

Step-moth-er  

-noun 

1. a person who is ineffective, useless, not successful

 

As a stepmother I care deeply about my stepkids. I want to be able to nurture them. They are fiercely loyal to their mother, though. In some ways this is good. But, many of my efforts to draw close to them are rejected. Out of loyalty to her, they have erected defensive walls between themselves and me. It is hard to give a tender hug through a thick cement wall. 

 

So, my role is to cook/ clean/ drive/ entertain/ dispense money on demand/ and stay out of their way. They don't believe that correcting them or telling them what to do, is part of the stepmom job description. 

 

From their limited perspective, I came to this party uninvited.

  

The Bible tells the story of another woman who came to a party uninvited. She was a prostitute. She took a valuable vial of perfume and poured it over Jesus' head. The rest of the guests, especially Jesus' closest associates were horrified. "What a waste!" They scolded. But Jesus silenced them. "She has done a beautiful thing." He went on to explain, "She did what she could when she could..."  (Mark 14:3-9 The Message)

Referring to this passage, Joy Sawyer, in her book The Art of the Soul says, "...the real question is not what we're doing, but the art of how we're doing it. Do we do 'what we can, when we can'? In other words, are we pouring out the most costly essence of our souls on the person of Christ? If so, he will live in and through our lives. We share the joy of knowing the story of our 'wasted lives' will definitely not be wasted."

 

The enemy of our souls would love to convince us that the hours we spend loving Christ by pouring ourselves out are wasted. The enemy wants us to stamp "futility" in big red letters all over our efforts, give up, and walk away. But that would be a mistake. Jesus sees the ways we pour ourselves out. He thinks they are tremendously valuable.

 

^"With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don't hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort." (I Corinthians 15:58 The Message)  

 

 

Accepting Hardship as a Pathway to Peace, continued

Recently, my curiosity was peaked when I learned that there was a connection between the author of the often quoted, cross-stitched, and hung on the wall, Serenity Prayer, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Last week I shared some of the lessons Bonhoeffer is teaching me by example so many years after his death. Today I share a few more.

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time. Enjoying one moment at a time. Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace. Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that You will make all things right If I surrender to Your will. So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen 
Reinhold Niebuhr

It seems to me that the words of the serenity prayer could be used as an excuse to be passive and concentrate on personal happiness. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a friend of the author of the prayer, did not live passively or for his own comfort. 

He did not choose to accept the advance of the Third Reich across Europe as I would have, a thing "he could not change". Instead he chose to believe that one young German pastor could make a difference against the Nazi machine sweeping Europe. He made the courageous decision to leave his safe seminary post in New York, and return to his native Germany to do what he could. 

Conscience led this Christian pastor to stand against the rush toward Nazism among his colleagues, make tough ethical choices, and accept the consequences. He opposed the weakness of the German protestant church. He broke away totally when the church adopted policies that excluded Jews from becoming members, even if they had been baptized, and helped found the Confessing Church which stood against Nazism. As he witnessed the suffering of the German people, Jews throughout Europe, and among the allied nations, Bonhoeffer's pacifist views receded further. He became a double agent and participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot failed and he was imprisoned for his efforts.

I wonder how Bonhoeffer felt during the first hours after his arrest. Did he indulge in a few hard earned moments of self pity? He had abandoned safety in order to fight evil. But at that hour, Hitler was still alive and well, wrecking havoc. 

 

He had acted according to his conscience, but in ways that were contrary to his earlier beliefs, and his efforts had failed. During those hours it must have seemed like evil would triumph. Did he struggle to do as the prayer suggests, "Trusting that You will make all things right If I surrender to Your will" Did he doubt the goodness of God? It must have seemed like all of his sacrifice was for naught. Did he regret choosing to suffer alongside his people? Remarkably, what he said indicates the opposite, that he thought he should have done even more.

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” Bonhoeffer

A fellow prisoner, British officer Payne Best recalled Bonhoeffer during those dark days in prison while he was awaiting execution.

"Bonhoeffer was different, just quite calm and normal, seemingly
perfectly at his ease... his soul really shone in the dark desperation
of our prison. He was one of the very few men I have ever met to whom God was real and ever close to him"

Best also said, "Bonhoeffer always seemed to diffuse an atmosphere of happiness, of joy in every small event of life, and deep gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive."

Apparently Bonhoeffer's awareness that God was "real and close to him" was enough to give him the strength to be "reasonably happy in this life" even in a Nazi prison after being sentenced to death.

He was executed in April 1945 just 3 weeks before the Nazis surrendered.

I have never faced anything so evil or overpowering as the Nazi machine. My circumstances are infinitely easier Bonhoeffer's, yet I think I can learn from his example. I can learn to shine even in times of dark desperation, because God is real and close. I can maintain joy in every small event in life even though the battle goes on.

May you be surrounded by the real and close God today,

Beth

Gold and Clay

Today I want to share a little wisdom from a century past. It comes from a book I am reading. The book, Aunt Jane of Kentucky, first published in 1907, is a collection of feel good stories about people in rural Kentucky. The narrator, Aunt Jane, weaves delightful tales, full of fun and the occasional word of wisdom gleaned over a long lifetime. Today, I share one of her best tidbits.

"...part of that sermon stayed by me all my life. He preached about Nebuchadnezzar and the image he saw in his dream with the head of gold and the feet of clay. And he said that every human being was like that image; there was gold and there was clay in every one of us. Part of us was human and and part was divine. Part of us was earthly like the clay, and part heavenly like the gold. And he said that in some folks you couldn't see anything but the clay, but that the gold was there, and if you looked long enough you'd find it. And some folks, he said, looked like they was all gold, but somewhere or other there was the clay, too, and nobody was so good but what he had his secret sins and open faults...and that the thing for us to do was to look for the gold and not the clay in other folks. For the gold was the part that would never die, and the clay was jest the mortal part that we dropped when this mortal shall have put on immortality." -Eliza Calvert Hall in Aunt Jane of Kentucky

Most of us need to learn the art of finding the clay-hidden gold in difficult people in our lives. Sometimes, we also need to acknowledge that people who look like they are all gold still have clay in them too.  Always, we need to remember that in the end, the clay will drop away but the gold will last.

Blessings on you today as you pan for gold,
Beth

Accepting Hardship as a Pathway to Peace

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world As it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that You will make all things right If I surrender to Your Will; So that I may be reasonably happy in this life And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen 
Reinhold Niebuhr

A few months ago I mentioned the serenity prayer. Recently I discovered a connection between its author and a hero of mine.

The author of the prayer, was a theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr. In his seminary classes, during the first years of the American great depression, he taught a brilliant young student from Germany. That student, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, returned to Germany in 1931. Before long, darkness gathered. Hitler rose to power, moved against the Jews, began to control the Christian church in Germany, and prepared to sweep over Europe. 


In 1938, war was imminent and Bonhoeffer, still only 32  years old, faced a good possibility of being conscripted into the German army. Refusal would have meant death. He escaped in time, accepting a teaching post at his old seminary in New York.

I can imagine jet-lagged Bonhoeffer's sleepless nights as he began to settle into life in New York. Mental battles must have raged within him. He had chosen to sit out the war in the quiet safety of a seminary professor's office and avoided the dangers of battling the great evil strangling his beloved home country. 

But, in Niebuhr's words, was this a situation that required serene acceptance or courageous action? 


Most people would have whispered a grateful prayer and settled into the seminary professor's office. After all, how could one young Christian pastor change the course of cataclysmic evil sweeping the world?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not most people though. After just three weeks in New York he returned to Germany, "accepting hardship as a pathway to peace".

He wrote to Niebuhr: "I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security." 

What courage it must have taken leave New York and stand with the German people as they faced that terrible alternative!

My daily battles are so small and insignificant in comparison to the ones faced by Bonhoeffer. Yet even my little life sometimes presents me with a choice between safe retreat and the courage to choose hardship as a pathway to peace. 

Only Jesus could give Bonhoeffer that courage. Only Jesus could give us that courage.

More next time...