Sometimes a person’s life is longer than their years.

It is God who trains our hands for war.

I admit, I find it easier to pray in solitude. Did not moses say that our God is near to us whenever we pray to him? I think he hears our prayers no matter where we pray them. I don’t think our God is hindered by where we are.

No one chooses his time. That is up to God.

When had she started to love him so? Had she missed something precious in him in years past when she wished he had been something he was not? Or had he been what she wanted all along but she could not see it?

We don’t always know why God allows trials. We do know He wants us to trust Him.

Arrow prayers darted heavenward.

Rahab pondered the thought. “I don’t suppose a pomegranate or a fig as an offering would have the same effect on our hearts. To see an innocent life taken in our place is much more humbling than offering Adonai fruit.

For the first time since Xerxes had chosen her as queen, she felt as though she had fallen from a sense of favor too one of fear. She held power she had never known before. The king had listened to her over Haman, and no woman had ever held such sway over the king in all of the years these women had known him. Even Vashti could not have persuaded him against Xerxes' nobles. But Esther, by God's grace, had prevailed against Haman.

She took a date and kissed it before offering it to him.He bit into it and then bent to kiss her again. This woman never ceased to amaze him. How bold she had become for one so young, and yet so graceful and even obedient. Not like Amestris or Vashti. She captured his imagination in ways he did not understand.