On Being Prepared

Today, I had to handle a task I felt completely unprepared for. Like, completely, totally unprepared. And so, because it’s just who I am and what I was called to do, I started gathering together resources and stomped right into the midst of the fray. I’m not at all sure how this is going to play out, or what will happen next, or who will step in or step out, but I’m in. And I’m trusting that I’ve got what I need for today, even if I don’t know it.

I know I’m not alone, because every single day I talk to people, and hear their stories. Life’s never easy, is it? Even when it’s going well, and days are mostly good and things feel stable and you’ve worked hard for your year of learning to be still, there’s always something requiring an extra measure of strength, or intention. Something waiting around the corner to steal contentment and joy if we’ll let it.

Something to tell us that we’re not quite enough.

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter who you are, or what you have done, or what your life has looked like. Whatever you’re facing in this moment: you have been prepared for such a time as this.

Queen Esther has been my unattainable / unidentifiable Bible character. I’ve struggled with her story, always thinking that because she was pretty, her success was a given. (Shallow much, Ellen?) I’m sure it’s an ugly-duckling complex on my own part, especially when I find my school photos from fourth grade to graduation. (Late blooming was kind of my jam.)

Lately though, I’m more drawn to Esther. I wonder if she felt unequipped for the task she was being called to because she was an orphan. She didn’t have a mother, like I did, to encourage her through her tasks. Or if she felt unequipped because she wasn’t the right race. She wasn’t the right gender to speak up. She wasn’t educated. She wasn’t raised from birth to charm and flatter. She may have felt like just not enough.

And I’m feeling her pain. Although I’ve moved into a new decade and supposedly have forty years of experience to prepare me for the things I’ll face today, this week and this year, I still wonder if I’ve learned enough. If I’m enough.

And yet, those years of my life and all they’ve held, good, glorious, bad and ugly, have been exactly what is being used to prepare me for such a time as this. Today. For the calls I’ll make, the decisions I’ll land on, the mothering I’ll do, the people I’ll connect with. The way I’ll deal with my current situation as I stand in the midst. I’m even prepared for the words I’m writing now.

Prepared for such a time as this. No more, no less.

You may be called in front of the king to advocate for the lives of your people, or you may be called to advocate for the life of your parent. You might have to find just the right words to talk to a social worker instead of a royal eunuch, or the strength to love the man you committed to decades ago, instead of the head of state you’ve been told to sleep with. You might be facing a diagnosis, recurring struggle, a loss, or all of the above. But you, friend, are an Esther.

Prepared for such a day as this. Such an hour as this. Such a minute as this.

You can trust as unbreakable truth that God uses all your things, all your experiences, your mistakes and successes and circumstances, weaving them together. And He weaves them together for your good, as you love Him and choose to live out your purpose. That task you are called to do today. The one He’s prepared you for, for such a time as exactly this, today, right where you stand.

And P.S. – for my dear friends who are desperately feeling like not enough, that’s okay, because, actually – you’re not. But there is One who is, and He’s shown me over and over again how faithful He is to be enough for me when I acknowledge I am not. Trust me on this one. xo