Ever wonder why you’re not seeing God’s answer to your
prayer? How does He choose when to reveal
His answers? Recently I sensed the Lord
leading me to share the story of Esther at a local shelter. Not knowing how many would attend or which
ages, I wrote a script to touch on all of Esther’s 10 chapters in the Bible. Performance would run maybe 30 minutes,
for ages young and old, adding intermittent piano and simple props for fun
along the way. Sort of a musical
storytelling with audience participation. My friend and I set up shop in the shelter’s little library, happy to receive our
first guests who happened to be preschoolers.
The clock hit 3:00, so we began, but soon came middle-schoolers,
quickly followed by elementary and possibly high school students. Suddenly our house was full and active, quite
robust, to say the least, and we restarted the story to accommodate the new
group. More of a stand-up storytelling
than a sit-down this time. Our first actors smiled to wear their yellow construction paper crowns, and they made a handsome king and queen, complete with a royal scepter made from a toy Star Wars saber. Children took turns with plastic play food at
our pretend banquets, and as the piano accompanied with light and dark musical tones, they tuned into the good and bad turns of Esther’s story. Quite remarkable was the attention that some of
the older children kept in the midst of it all, listening and thinking to consider the ways of Esther and Mordecai in their own lives and focusing to answer my questions about fasting and bravery in
making decisions. Our time together
required all my energy, yet amazingly the Lord held us and carried us forward. Afterward returning home and unloading the
car, I opened the box for the ukulele I’d taken for the story’s celebration of
Purim. I saw something that left me stunned. Inside the box was a little red plastic ball
for which I’d prayed about 9 months ago.
The fact that the Lord revealed it now simply caught me unexpected, refreshing me and quenching my thirst in the whirl of
the day, encouraging me too to continue following Him through whirlwinds and all. This red ball plays a key part in a favorite
magic trick, and I’d lost it one day in the hospital while providing puppets
for children. Now more fun can be had with the disappearing-ball-in-the-vase trick. Thank you, Lord. His timing is perfect because He knows our
personalities and emotions and our future too, including when best to bestow His answers to our prayers. Isaiah
30:18 tells us, “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you
compassion. For the Lord is a God of
justice. Blessed are all who wait for
him!”
