I’ve been at this Bible studying for almost as many years as I’ve been alive. I attended Christian school, church twice a week and small group Bible studies beginning in middle school. I know my stuff. The old testament does not scare me.

I’ve also lived. I’m darn near half a century and I’ve seen things, experienced things, lived among people. In other words, I’ve acquired street smarts to go along with my book learning.

In this latest study, I’m returning to a familiar story with a more nuanced filter. And with nuance comes realization that the black and white soliloquies of our youth were a decadent display of blissful ignorance as we now meander through the middle of our lives mired in the messy grays of life. Still, stepping in to the pages of scripture and seeing similar hues, is an altogether more unnerving encounter. It means one must engage one’s mind when really, one would rather just be told what to do. Wrestling and asking for revelation, the kind that leads to transformation, is an art we’re unaccustomed to in our answer-driven, google-searching existences.

Study is such slow work.

If I were to guess, I’d say a good portion of the Bible readers I know are familiar with Esther’s story, at least in part, and at some point might have even uttered the phrase “for such a time as this” when needing to induce courage. It’s a good line for such a need as that.

But here’s what I never put together before. Esther’s beloved cousin Mordecai, the one who took her orphan self in and gave her steady wise counsel was also the one responsible for the predicament she found herself in. Yes. Mordecai made waves and got himself noticed. He chose not to show honor to an arrogant political prick and that, to put it mildly, poked the sleeping bear. Far as I can tell, it was a personal choice. God didn’t tell him not to. And there would be hell to pay.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the city, the King had asked for the fairest of the fair young ladies to be brought to him, for his pleasure. Esther was a beauty. So the virgin girl was taken from her home and placed on house arrest in the King’s court – for an entire year, awaiting her turn to be with the King. How wonderful. But as God would have it, she found favor in his eyes; meaning, he liked how she looked, or was drawn to her essence, or she simply had that “it” factor. We aren’t exactly sure, but we’ve watched enough American Idol to presume to know how this went down.

And so began her Queenliness.

But before that, Esther was a concubine and afterwards, a shrewd negotiator. All at the behest, the choices, the insatiable desire of others. One led an empire, the other her impressionable young heart. One could say she was but a pawn; a willing one, but a pawn nonetheless.

Ever feel like that?

I know I do. I get upset when I find myself in undesirable situations I didn’t create. Spend days whining to God about how unfair it is that so-and-so did this or that and here I am living in the aftermath. Wasn’t I somehow supposed to be spared the harsh reality that other people can affect the trajectory and dreams of my own life? (Remnants of my black and white ideal linger long.)

Esther is my new hero not because of her courage to face down one of the most powerful tyrants the world has ever known, but because she faced her life’s detours with grace. From what’s recorded, she wasn’t bitter. She didn’t suddenly turn a deaf ear to Mordecai, the man she’d rightly trusted. And honestly, I can’t even fathom being with a man who’d taken hundreds of other women and now as “the queen”, can’t approach for fear of death. But even so, Esther lived. Vibrantly. Throwing banquets, saving nations, writing words of good will and assurance to her people (#kindred), fasting and praying. She kept on, regardless.

The longer I live, the more inclined I am to want to know people’s story, especially those in Scripture. I love the one liners as much as the next person but I crave knowing, reading, seeing how men and women of faith survived their day to days more than conquered their Goliaths.

Because that’s what most of life is. Day to day. These visions of grandeur where plans move along according to timelines and destiny as some sort of birthright, keep us bound to end results. And the end should not be our concern. God is the end. He declared it. He is also the beginning.

So be of good cheer! These middle days have been orchestrated by One who knows the events you didn’t bargain for and yet perfectly designed you to rise up for such a time as this.