Month: February 2023

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Be the Heroine in Your Own Love Story – Part 4

Mary

Mary the mother of Jesus is probably the most famous woman in the Bible. We know she was special simply for the fact that God chose her out of all the women in Judah at that time to be the mother of His Son. I could end this post right there, but that wouldn’t be any fun. At least for me. 

Mary must have had as pure a heart as any human could possess (other than her Son, of course). We don’t know her exact age, but judging from Hebrew custom and practice of the time, she was probably quite young. Maybe as young as 13 since even today, that is the age at which a Jewish person, male or female, is considered an adult. 

Matthew 1:18–25 tells us Joseph’s side of the story. He chose Mary as his betrothed. (A betrothal was more binding than an engagement today, but not quite as binding as a full-on marriage. They weren’t living together as man and wife and had not, of course, consummated their relationship.) Then he discovers she’s pregnant. Can you just imagine the shame and agony he must have felt? He’s been honorable, but now she’s with child. Not his child. We the reader are told up front she was with child of the Holy Spirit. No hanky panky involved. But Joseph didn’t know that. He could have had her publicly humiliated. Dragged out to the town square and stoned to death for adultery. Verse 19 tells us he didn’t want to make her a public example so he “was minded to put her away secretly.” A less honorable man might have wanted revenge. I’m all about giving people their due, so Joseph gets a 100%, A+ for honor and kindness in my book. But beyond his honorable character, there must have been another reason he didn’t want humiliation or death for Mary. We don’t know how well they knew each other. Was it a love match? An arranged marriage? He must have had some knowledge of the kind of woman he was marrying. I believe he cared about her. That’s why he could unselfishly put her wellbeing above his own feelings.

Verse 20 says “while he was still thinking about these things…” He’s still trying to figure out what to do. I may be reading into the text, but what I get out of that is he’s not resolved about what to do. Maybe he loved her enough to want to take her as his wife anyway. She had to be a very special woman for him to even contemplate such a possibility under the circumstances. Then—oh happy sleep—he’s told by an angel in a dream not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because the babe in her womb is of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 24 says “Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife.” 

Again I may be reading into it, but the wording of this verse makes it sound as if he woke up from his dream and ran to Mary’s house right away to get her. He could have waited a day or two. But no, he jumped at the chance to welcome her into his home as his wife. Yeah, she’s carrying a Child not his, but what a Child! He was so delighted to discover she hadn’t cheated on him that he rushed out the same night to get her.

Let’s skip over to Luke 1 for Mary’s side of the story. In verse 27 the angel greets her with the words “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” 

Wow. That’s really high praise. They talk a bit and once she understands what’s happening, she submits. Verse 38 tells us her response: “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” 

Did she have a choice in the matter? I believe God’s free will would have allowed her to say, hey, wait a minute. I don’t want to do this. Or maybe God chose her because He knew what her response would be. She found favor with Him for good reason. Reasons we don’t know because the Bible doesn’t tell us about her early life. We don’t need to know. Her response tells us she was humble and submissive to God.  Two of the nine fruit of the Spirit.

The following verses tell of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth and Mary’s song of praise to God. For a young teen-aged woman, pregnant outside of marriage, it could have been frightening. She knew she was still pure, but facing the doubting Thomases around her could have taken a toll on her emotional state. She shows wisdom in going to spend time with Elizabeth, away from the wagging tongues in her own community. But she gives a beautiful testimony of gratitude and praise to God, the One who put her in that situation to begin with. She sees the honor of what God chose her to do rather than the discomfort of her situation. She says in verse 49 “For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.” (emphasis mine.) Those are the words of a humble and grateful person. And she goes on to lift Him up. No arrogance. No bitterness. 

Luke 2 tells us the difficulties Mary faced at the end of her pregnancy. She’s heavy with child and has to leave the comfort of her home and go to Bethlehem to register for a census by, not her own people’s government, but the pompous king of a conquering nation. Then they arrive in Bethlehem but no one will take them in. She has to go to a barn that stinks of animal sweat and excrement. Because let’s face it, a barn is a barn. Even a clean one will have animal smells and dust and dirt. She has the baby in that barn. She’s tired from her long journey while nine months pregnant, then the exhaustion of giving birth. A little rest, please. 

Nope. A bunch of strangers rush to the barn to see the miracle the angels told them about. I’m going to use my writer’s imagination, here, and what we’ve already observed of Mary’s character. She could have been bothered. Told them to go away and come back tomorrow. I believe those shepherds were received with a welcome full of grace. I imagine Mary’s mother-heart filled with joy to see her baby, God’s Son, the Savior of the world, worshiped as He deserved. Verse 19 says “But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” I imagine a quiet girl, sitting back, observing. Taking it all in and holding all these events in her memory. And wondering, why me? Why did God choose this lowly maidservant for such an honor?

Joseph, of course, was witnessing all this. Observing his chosen wife. And saying to himself, yeah, I made the right choice. His heart must have been full to the brim with love for her.

Skip ahead 33 years. The Child Mary has loved as a Son and as a Savior is dying on a cross for crimes He didn’t commit. She’s at the foot of the cross, offering Him whatever support she can though her heart is breaking. But Jesus shows His great love for her by thinking of her well-being even while He’s agonizing. He looks down and sees her with his disciple John. Joseph is no longer in the picture, so Jesus asks John to take care of Mary. Yes, I know Jesus is God, Himself. And as a perfect Human He was the epitome of unselfishness. But His human side was in pain. Dying. Carrying the burden of the sin of the world. And He put all that aside to make a dying request for His mother. That says plenty about our Savior, but  it speaks to the person of Mary as well. 

It’s no wonder Joseph was in such a rush to make her his wife. 

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Esther, Miss Persia circa 486 BC

Welcome back to my third post on the romantic heroines of the Bible. Today I want us to study a literal beauty queen.

Esther’s outward beauty cannot be contested. The biblical narrative tells us “The young woman was lovely and beautiful.” (Esther 2:7) So beautiful, she was chosen to go into the king’s harem. But there was more to her than her looks. 

As soon as she went into the harem, she won the favor of Hegai, “the custodian of the women.” The Bible says she “pleased him, and she obtained his favor.” (2:9) He favored her so much that he gave her extra beauty preparations and appointed seven “choice” maidservants from the king’s palace to serve her. But that wasn’t enough. He moved her and her maids to the best part of the women’s house. Hegai was a eunuch, as any man in charge of the king’s women would have been. So his attraction to her was something more than her physical beauty.

When Esther’s turn came to meet the king, she asked for only the most basic of beauty aids. Whatever and only what Hegai suggested. If it isn’t clear enough to the reader that the young woman’s beauty was more than skin deep, the narrative adds in 2:16 “And Esther obtained favor in the sight of all who saw her.” Her physical appearance would have been enough for anyone to do a double take. But for her to obtain their favor, the inner person must have been shining through.

The king loved her “more than all the other women.” She was chosen out of the many women, all beautiful, to take the place of the ousted queen.

And King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther lived happily ever after. The end.

Hold it. Not quite.

King Ahasuerus, also known as Xerxes, wasn’t known for his patience and kindness. This guy had a nasty temper. When he decided to invade and conquer Greece, he had to get his army across a strip of water called the Dardanelles Strait, also known as the Hellespont. By tying together a large group of boats, his engineers made a bridge that would allow his army to march across. Before they could venture over it, a storm blew up and destroyed the bridge. Maybe he should have been grateful it happened beforehand instead of when they were in the middle of the bridge. Or maybe he should have given up and gone home. After all, the destruction was an “act of God” and the king should have heeded this warning. But nope. Not he. He threw a major hissy fit and ordered his soldiers to—this is recorded in history—whip the sea 300 times with chains. Then those poor soldiers, who must have already felt stupid, had to poke the strait with red hot irons and toss handcuffs into the water to make sure the sea would submit to the king. Um. 👀 

The harshest thing he did, though, was promptly order the decapitation of the engineers. Hey wait. It was a STORM. Not their fault. But you get the picture. Side note…he should have listened to the God who orders the weather (though this would have been before Esther and Mordecai were part of his life, so it’s doubtful he cared about the Hebrew God), because they made it across, were humiliatingly defeated by the Greeks, and went back to their ship-bridge with tails between their legs. To find it destroyed once again. 

In the opening to the book of Esther, an older, should-have-been wiser Xerxes starts by deposing his beautiful wife who refused to parade about for a bunch of drunken royals. Once his anger subsides, he realizes the mistake he’s made, but then it’s too late. Should have controlled his temper. 🙄

Why am I telling you all this stuff about the king? Isn’t this post supposed to be about Esther? Yes, it’s about her. I’m just letting you know who she was dealing with. 

When it became clear Xerxes also had bad judgment when it came to those he chose to rule with him, namely, Haman, Esther had to confront the problem this posed to her people.

When she goes before the king to plead for her people and her own life, she’s afraid. Well, yeah! If she went before him without him requesting a visit, it could mean certain death. And since he’s shown himself to be a bit hot-headed and ill-tempered, who could know what kind of mood he’d be in when she went to see him? 

The king shows her favor. Yes, we know God was in it. We know He had a special plan for her. But maybe, just maybe, God chose Esther because of the characteristics that endeared her to everyone who came in contact with her. Xerxes welcomed her, did as she asked, even offering to give her half of his kingdom. And later, once Haman’s scheme was revealed, the king chose his wife over his most trusted adviser. He could have doubted her. Haman was his number two, after all. Esther had kept her Jewish ethnicity a secret, so what else might she be hiding from him? 

Nah, he believes her. He’s so angry, he walks away (surprise, surprise!). When he returnes, he finds Haman begging Esther for his life. Last straw. Haman’s a goner.

Now the king knows all of our heroine’s secrets. He knows she’s a Jewess, one of the conquered people, but he gives her everything she asks for and even elevates Mordecai to Haman’s position. With plenty of other beautiful women populating his harem, he could have easily replaced his new queen. But he loved her. He was enchanted by her.

I get the same vibes from Esther as I did from Hannah. Gentle. Kind. She possessed a submissive and obedient spirit. Not only to men, but to God as well. She must have been aware she had the kind of looks that turned men’s heads, but it didn’t make her arrogant. I imagine when she was taken into the harem, she must have been quaking with fear. Or she might have turned bitter for the liberty she lost. That’s not what happened. She showed great courage as she continued to blossom, despite her circumstances, and let her inner being shine through…A light that engulfed the people around her and endeared her to their hearts.

It’s no wonder the cantankerous Ahasuerus/Xerxes chose her to be his queen and turned to mush in her hands.

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Be the Heroine in Your Own Love Story Part 2

Hannah (1 Samuel chapters 1 and 2)

What bound Elkanah’s heart to Hannah instead of to the wife who bore him many sons? The Bible doesn’t tell us about Hannah’s looks, only that she had no children and her husband loved her. In those days, a woman was seen as cursed by God if she didn’t have children. Bible scholars believe Hannah was a first wife, and when she proved to be barren, Elkanah took a second wife who gave him all the children he needed. Yet he still loved and valued Hannah. Peninnah’s jealous actions against Hannah give us a clue that he might have even loved the barren wife more than he did the fruitful one.

As a first wife, Hannah could have been brutal to Peninnah. Instead, she withstood the abuse heaped on her by her rival and chose not to lash out. In the depths of her despair, she went to the Lord in prayer. At a time of feasting and celebration, it might have been easy to indulge in drinking, as Eli the priest accused her of doing, and “forget” her troubles for a bit. But she was praying. Pouring out her heart to the one Person who could actually do something about her condition.

She could have become bitter. Turned against God for closing her womb. But her gentleness shines through the narrative. I can only imagine how this must have maintained Elkanah’s heart soft for her. Each year when he went up to offer sacrifices, he gave her a double portion. I’m not 100% sure what this means, and even Bible scholars don’t agree on the literal translation of the term from the original language. Maybe he hoped God would open her womb. Or maybe, and most theologians agree, he was making a point of saying she mattered to him even without children. “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” he asks her. And since out of the mouth proceed the contents of one’s heart, we can assume that’s how he felt about her. She was worth more to him than ten sons. And for that culture and time period, that’s saying something!

Not only was she beloved of Elkanah but also honored by God. He gave her the son she begged Him for, and when she gave little Samuel back to the Lord, showing she was a woman of her word, God blessed her with five more children. Three sons and two daughters.

We live in a very different world. Society does not judge a woman’s worth by the amount of children she has. Quite the opposite. We are scrutinized for far more trivial things, and it can be easy to fall into a despair that breeds bitterness when we don’t measure up to society’s standards. But what man isn’t drawn by a meek and gentle spirit? To be clear, meekness does not mean weakness just as submission doesn’t mean doormat. I’m sure it took a lot of self-control for Hannah to not lash out at her husband’s shrewish second wife. And what admirable will-power for her to respond graciously to the priest when he accused her of being drunk when she was praying. A man worth having will prize the characteristics Hannah displayed more than the unrealistic, Hollywood-inspired beauty standards shoved down girls’ throats from the moment they come into this world. A godly man will value gentleness, kindness, and faithfulness more than a “perfect” figure or porcelain skin which fades with age.

Galatians 5:22-23 lists nine character traits it calls the fruit of the spirit.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Every Christian—man or woman—is encouraged to cultivate this fruit. Of those nine, Hannah displays seven right off the bat, with the other two, joy and peace, eventually coming to her. Now that’s a woman to look up to and emulate.

 

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Be the Heroine in Your Own Love Story

Have you ever wondered what it was about Sarah, Rebekah or Rachel that made their husbands fall head over heels in love with them? Why did Elkanah prefer barren Hannah over Peninnah, the wife who bore him plenty of children? We know Esther’s beauty caught the king’s eye, but what made him favor her to the point of allowing her people, captives and slaves, to fight his to save themselves? Joseph was a righteous man, but what was it about Mary that caused him to want to “put her away quietly” instead of humiliating her when he, himself, must have been embarrassed to discover she was pregnant outside of wedlock? And why, in a male-dominated society, did the apostle Paul mention Priscilla together with her husband Aquila?

Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Esther were all described as beautiful. They naturally turned men’s heads and drew attention to themselves for something that wasn’t necessarily their own doing. But looks fade with time. There must have been something more about these women that kept their husbands’ love and attention.

Sarah (Genesis chapters 12 – 23)

When God told Abraham to leave Ur, the home where he and Sarah had grown up, Abraham packed everything and left. Sarah might not have had much of a choice in the matter, but I imagine she rolled up her sleeves and packed the bags. She was a barren woman, and in an age when bearing plenty of children was part of a woman’s worth, Abraham valued her and did not take a second wife, as their culture allowed. If she had a negative spirit, always complaining about “Why’d you have to move us so far from all we know?” Abraham might have been quick to take on that second wife. 

They stopped part way to the Promised Land and set up camp for some time in Haran. We don’t know how long they stayed there, but it might have been just enough time for her to get settled when Abraham pulled up roots again and moved them to the land of Canaan.

I’m supposing here, I have no biblical passages to back me up, but Sarah and Abraham likely had a stable home in Ur of the Chaldees, which was a thriving city at the time. For an urban girl, born and bred, to have to slip into a nomadic life couldn’t have been easy. But she did it.

A wife’s support is vital to a man. The saying that behind every great man is a strong woman isn’t just a cliché. A wife can make or break her husband. The Bible has examples of wives who were not good influences on their husbands, and both paid the price. Jezebel and Ahab, Ananias and Saphira come to mind. 

Sarah wasn’t perfect, and she made some VERY poor choices in her long life. She would have done well to put her foot down and say no when Abraham asked her to lie and say she wasn’t his wife but his sister to protect his life. Twice! 🤦🏼‍♀️ She would have spared herself a lot of heartache if she’d trusted God to keep His word rather than push another woman into the arms of her husband. But despite her faults, she was a good, submissive wife, and when she passed, Abraham mourned for her and went to a bit of trouble to have her buried in a decent place. 

The New Testament has good things to say about Sarah, too. In Hebrews 11 she is called faithful. She was given God’s power to conceive in her old age because she believed in Him. No, that’s not a contradiction. Yes, she took things into her own hands and regretted it forever after. But she came to understand God’s will and trusted Him to keep His word. And reaped the rewards of it by having a beloved son for the final 40 years of her life. 

1 Peter 3:6 also praises Sarah. It says she “obeyed Abraham and called him her lord.” This passage might be hard to swallow for some women today. The words obey and submission send chills down the spines of many. That’s because biblical submission is misunderstood and misinterpreted by the world, and unfortunately, by some who belong to Christ as well.

Being a submissive wife does not mean being a doormat to be trampled. Nowhere in Sarah’s story do we see an abused, cowering woman. Submission is not weakness. Do you know how much self-control it takes to submit to another human being? Jesus, the God-man, the only Person to have the power to bring Himself back from death, willingly submitted Himself to God the Father. He also willingly submitted Himself to humans and allowed them to take His life. It wouldn’t have happened if He didn’t want it to.

The same concept is described in 1 Peter 3:6. A wife is very much an equal to her husband as far as her worth before God and her importance in the relationship. But a godly wife, like Sarah, willingly agrees to take the role of follower for the good of the family. And out of obedience to the Lord.

Ephesians 5:22-26 lays out the way things should be in a marriage. A wife is to submit herself to her husband as she would to the Lord. Some folks like to stop there and put all the burden on the woman, but a few verses down, the passage says a husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church. To the point he’s willing to give his life for her. Whoa. Can you imagine a world where every husband loved his wife with that much fervor?

In my view, it’s a happy cycle. If a husband is following God’s mandates and loves his wife that sacrificially, his wife will gain respect for him. If she knows he has her back, she’ll have an easier time submitting to him. In turn, her respect and submission will fill him with more love for her. And the more he loves her, the more she’ll love and respect him. It’s a win-win situation. But then, isn’t God’s way always a winning strategy?

Tune in on Monday for our next romantic heroine. Hannah.

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