Book Review- "Esther: A Women of Strength and Dignity"

Wednesday, May 4, I finished a book by Chuck Swindoll. It is Esther: A Women of Strength and Dignity. This book is the second volume of the Great Lives From God's Word series. The series takes people from the Bible and tells about their lives. Before this book I read two other books from the series which are the ones on Paul (sixth volume) and Moses (fourth volume). As of now, there are seven volumes, four of which I own (these three and the one on Job [seventh volume]). I got each of these books from Insight For Living; their website is www.insight.org.

This book (Esther: A Women of Strength and Dignity) tells about Ester. Esther was a Jewish Women who participated in a beauty contest. The prize was being queen of Persia. Esther won the contest and later on she found out of a plan to kill her race which she (and her race) survived. All of this I think a person would need alot of strength. During the contest and even when becoming queen, Esther kept her race a secret out of obedience to her guardian Mordecai. And after learning of the plan to kill her race, she went to the king and told of the plan again out of obedience to her guardian. These things I think would take dignity to do.

One repeated phrase in the book is "the power of a women". I would agree. A women that has the character of Esther would have power indeed. The book in one chapter told that any women can have Esther's character; not just Esther.

One verse that is repeated in the book is Proverbs 21:1 which says "The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes." I think we can take comfort from that. Even though we can not control a person's heart, God can; all we would need to do is to put the person into God's hands. One chapter in the book has similar advice.

I just have a few sentences before I am done with this review. Read the book. Women try to develop Esther's character. Men try to find such a woman.

The next book I plan to do a review on will be "Through Gates of Splendor" by Elizabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot's widow, which I am reading right now.