An orphan who became queen, and risked everything to save her people.
Appears in Esther 2–10.
Esther was a Jewish orphan living in Persia, raised by her older cousin Mordecai. When King Xerxes went looking for a new queen, Esther was taken into the palace. She won the king's favor and was crowned queen, but she kept her Jewish identity a secret.
Then Haman, the king's highest official, became furious that Mordecai wouldn't bow to him. He convinced the king to sign a law to destroy every Jew in the empire on a single day. Mordecai begged Esther to go to the king. The problem: anyone who approached the king without being summoned could be put to death. Mordecai told her, "Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"
Esther asked her people to fast for three days, then went in: "If I perish, I perish." Through two banquets, a sleepless king and a stunning reversal, Haman fell and the Jews were saved. They still celebrate it today, at Purim.
Esther wasn't fearless. When Mordecai first asked her to go to the king, her answer was basically "I can't" (4:11). She had spent years hiding who she was (2:10, 2:20). Her courage didn't come before the fear. It came after three days of fasting, with the fear still there: "If I perish, I perish."
One more honest thing: God's name never appears in the book of Esther. He works through timing, a sleepless night and ordinary people, and you have to look for Him.
Mordecai said Esther might be where she was "for such a time as this." Where has God placed you right now, and what might He want you to do there?
Reading plan: Esther (Esther in 10 days)