Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Thanks for tuning in today. You guys have found me at my little corner of the internet. This is off the bench with Heidi St. John and today is Thursday, March 10th and today, given that we are celebrating

Esther and her life for the month of March. We're going to talk a little bit about what it means to be born for such a time as this. Stick around. I think you're going to be encouraged.

So thanks you guys for tuning in today. I'm always really glad that you're here. A lot of you are brand new to watching this on video. So welcome. I'm glad that you are finding a brand new format.

I'm glad that you're enjoying watching me and my element here. Since you're able to see me on video, I wanted to recommend a book that I have been reading in my, you know, spare time in the evenings. So basically at 11 o'clock at night. But I've been reading. I have read through the Federalist papers.

And we just finished Constitution alive here at the homeschool resource center. I think we're going to get into biblical citizenship. But I discovered this book on the Federalist papers. And I'm loving it because it's indexed to talk about what's happening in real time with till today's political issue.

This is the book. And you guys see this. It's called the Federal papers, the Federalist papers in modern language by Mary Webster. And I'm enjoying it because you can see why these guys were so passionately in defense of the Constitution.

They had a very solid plan and very good reasoning behind the Constitution. All seven articles of the Constitution on the 27 amendments. And it's important that we understand the history of our nation, understand why it's so important that we defend the Constitution. So if you have never read the Federalist papers.

I mean, it really is a slog. It's a tough slog through, but I'm enjoying the Federalist papers in modern language by Mary Webster. And I will link back to that in the show notes today. The other day I was reading. I've been reading through Nia Maya and coming on the show and just taking you guys through some of the things that I've been reading about. And the other day I finished Nia Maya.

So like the last part of it is really, you know, how Nia Maya rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem and then the ordering of the people. There's a lot of genealogies in there. It's a fascinating book to get to the end of it. And I just, I'm just reading reading reading. And I just kept reading and all of a sudden I'm in Esther.

And I've got to thinking this is a great time to be in the book of Esther because Purim is here, of course, Purim meaning lots. And the story of Esther is so powerful for right now given what's happening. It's the same reason I loved reading Nia Maya for what's going on right now. And so what I wanted to do was take you guys through a little bit of the story of Esther. If you're not familiar, and especially if you're children are not familiar with Esther, listen to you guys. We can't pass on what we don't possess.

We want our children to know the word of God to be able to defend it. And we want to be able to do that as well. And so this is an exciting time to study the word of God. And I want to take you right to it. So I'm going to read to you from Esther.

And you know, you can sit back and listen, get yourself a cup of tea, whatever you need to do. But I'm going to read to you from the book of Esther. And then we're going to talk a little bit about it. And why I think it's so important that we keep her at the forefront of our minds right now.

This is Esther chapter one, starting in the very beginning. These events happened in the days of King Zerxes, who reigned over 127 provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia.

At that time, Zerxes ruled his empire from his royal throne in the fortress of Susa, which by the way, would today be modern day Iraq.

I've taught on Esther over the over the last probably 20 years in different places in the country. It's very fascinating to see the parallels between what was happening in Esther's time and some of the things that we see happening here, particularly in the Middle East.

In the Middle East, in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all of his nobles and officials. He invited all the military officers of Persia and media, as well as the princes and nobles of the provinces. The celebration lasted 180 days, a tremendous display of opulent wealth of his empire and the pomp and splendor of his majesty.

When it was all over, the king gave a banquet for all the people from the greatest to the least who were in the fortress of Susa. It lasted for seven days and was held in the courtyard of the palace garden.

The courtyard was beautifully decorated with white cotton curtains and blue hangings, which were fashioned with white linen cords and purple ribbons to silver rings embedded in marble pillars.

Gold and silver couches stood on a mosaic pavement of poufery marble, mother of pearl and other costly stones. If you guys have never seen a poufery, it's like a purplish mineral and they would mix it together with marble and mother of pearl and made this beautiful and very, very expensive pavement.

If you can imagine, I immediately thought what the Bible says in Revelation about streets of golden heaven, this was pretty darn close to that. This guy had a lot of money.

Drinks were served in gold goblets of many designs and there was an abundance of royal wine reflecting the king's generosity.

By eating to the king, no limits were placed on the drinking for the king had instructed all his palace officials to serve each man as much as he wanted.

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