Hadassah
She's not Esther. Believing doesn't come so easily.
The night before she goes to the king, Hadassah – Hadassah, not Esther, because Esther is the brave and faithful and glorious one, whereas Hadassah goes weak-kneed with fear – thinks about the events and people that transpired to bring her here, guided by an unknown hand for an unfathomable purpose.
She had been but a girl when Mordecai first brought her to this foreign land of many luxuriant riches. An orphan uprooted from everything she had ever known, of little worth; her beauty exquisite but not quite grown into, merely an awed face in a crushing crowd. Now, she stands as queen of the empire, reaped from thousands upon thousands, the jewel of the harvest. Clad in silken robes that felt decadent on her skin. Atop a balcony of cool white marble, the vast night sky above, the network of civilization below.
For all these, she doesn't feel much different.
Still lost.
Still fearful.
Still looking out for a home that will last forever.
~.~
Home, is what she finds when makes her final sacrifice: her life given freely without certainty of recompense. Her head bowed and soul stripped bare and free of earthly trappings.
Her gaze is lost in the clear, aquamarine oceans under the surface of the sapphires adorning the king's - her husband's - hand. Brilliant glimmers shine off the surface of the water in the shape of the stars of David and she feels God with her, holding her hand. Faith made her beautiful, faith gave her strength, now faith felt like an armor on her soul – Hadassah's never felt safer.
God is her home, she realizes, had always been.
Esther, she thinks, knew it all along.
"For I know well the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. When you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. I will gather you and bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
- Jeremiah 29: 11-14.