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We can learn so much from the story of Esther. When I read the story again, I noticed a few things that every busy mom should put into practice.

First, Esther showed that she respected her husband, she did not try to get her way through manipulation, but wisely asked God to show her how to approach her husband.  She became a student of her husband.  She studied his emotions and knew his heart.

Second, Esther had demonstrated that she was trustworthy; her husband trusted what she had said and he demonstrated his love for her as he listened to her. She had not only won his physical affection, but also his listening ear.

Lastly, she was a student of her husband. She had learned a lot from queen Vashti’s previous mistakes, but, remember, Esther was motivated by love. She was carrying the weight of a nation on her shoulders. It was not only in her best interest to learn how to communicate with her husband—it was the in the best interest of an entire nation.

We don’t often think of how important it is to learn how to communicate lovingly and effectively with our husbands. After all, we don’t have an entire nation depending on whether or not we get this whole marriage thing right…or do we?

I believe if we could only see in the future and see that there IS an entire nation depending on it,  if we could stop and look at the affects of mentoring and discipling of our children, we might see amazing changes in our culture. Perhaps, we would find many families could be spared from the devastation of divorce.

If we were to truly love our husbands with our words, and then match those words with our actions, I wonder how many generations of children might enter into marriages of their own with the right perspective.

We MUST not underestimate the power of communicating right with our husband.  Ask God to help you become a student of your husband, precious mom.  Now there’s a course worth taking! I want to keep learning about my husband. Bonus: He’s a cute subject to study.

Going Back to School With You,

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We have all heard of the amazing story of Esther. In fact, the story is so incredible, in the Old Testament, there is a whole book devoted to it.

I am just going to summarize for you the whole book, for the sake of time.

The story goes that Esther, a Jew, was married to a Persian King named Ahasuerus, who signed a decree to have all the Jews killed. Because of this, Esther was in a unique and life-threatening situation. Her very life and the lives of her people demanded that she interact with her husband with a great deal of courage and wisdom. Keep in mind that the king did not know that Esther was a Jew. He only knew she was absolutely stunningly beautiful, apparently that was all he needed to know as his first wife was said to be the most beautiful woman in all of Persia. However, being married to the king of Persia did not give Esther much protection. If she displeased him, she would most likely be divorced, like the king’s first wife, or, even worse, she could be killed.

It was serious business to upset or displease the king. Obviously this is extreme wife 101 right here, which is why I find it so amazing: the future of the Jews literally hung upon how well Esther communicated with her husband.

Esther knew in her heart what the king was going to do was wrong. Her heart ached as she knew she was in disagreement with her husband. But, we also know she was very, very aware of the king’s authority and her place in it.

Praise the Lord for His Word, as we read the account of Esther, we find that her response has provided us with a beautiful, biblical model in how to approach a husband that is making a decision that we feel is wrong before Lord.

In Esther 4:16, we see that the first thing she did was to gather her maidservants and begin to fast and pray. I know you’re tired of hearing about all these women in the Bible with their maidservants, but I feel your pain on that one.

Anyway, I love Esther’s response because it is so contradictory to what our sin nature wants to do. I don’t know about you, but I struggle with making prayer my first response to most things. My first response to when my husband and I disagree is to usually try to win him over with a good argument. But according to the Bible, that is not the best response.

God wants our response to be three things for sure: motivated by love, bathed in prayer, and gentle (from Ephesians 4:2).

Are you gentle? Is your reaction towards your husband motivated by love and bathed in prayer?

If not, ask the Lord to remind you of the story of Esther, to write the Esther story in your own life, and your own marriage. Because something else stands out in the way Esther approached her situation: she waited for the Lord. She really waited, even when her husband asked what was on her mind, she still waited another day until she was for sure that the Lord had said, “Now is the right time.”

Waiting patiently on the Lord requires that we are listening to Him above all other things.