But first some background: The sixth chapter is "the hinge of the story of Esther." God appoints or allows circumstances (often crises) in our lives to redirect our paths. Today, I explored the unexpected pivot point of Esther, which was called, "The reversal of destiny" as well as, "the reversal of fortunes".
"Two literary devices are employed magnificently in the Book of Esther" as quoted by Beth Moore. These two literary devices are chiastic structure and peripety. In bible times, authors used different kinds of literacy structures for transition purposes.
Chiastic structure is a reversal of wording to emphasize an overarching point. It's also called "inverted parallelism", ie. "Eat to Live", and "Don't live to eat". "I am scared to fight" and "I fight because I am scared". The bible is full of chiastic structure, 2 Cor 5:21, 1 Pet. 2:10, Luke 15, etc. In the book of Esther, chiastic structure is illustrated in the repeated occurrences of feasts or banquets. A lot went on at these banquets!
Peripety is a sudden turn of events that reverses the expected or intended outcome particularly in a literary work.
Even though God is not mentioned in the book of Esther, His name is on it. In Esther 6:1, the king could not sleep (the Lord took sleep from the King). The King had his records read to him and realized that Mordecai had saved his life. This was a God ordained pivotal moment. The hinge in which the reversal changes/turns.
As Beth Moore puts it, "A peripeteria swiftly turns a routine sequence of events into a story worth telling"
Getting back to me and my life, chapter 6 of Esther makes me think back on those "reversals of destiny "in my life. Times when a routine sequence of events turned into something much bigger and worth remembering and learning from.
I look back on geographical moves that I have made and note the following:
Raised in N.Y until I was 19 years old and moved to San Diego, California (1977/78) after my parents divorced and lived in S.D. until 1991. God used my paremts' divorce to get me to San Diego to meet Stan, and marry him.
1991-1999, Moved to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia with Stan and lived there 8 years and had our first child, Christina there. God used an economic slow down to get Stan and I to Saudi Arabia where we both came to have a close and personal relationship with Jesus Christ as well as have our first child.
1999-2007, Moved to Cary, N.C. where we had our second child, Angela. God prompted us to move back to the U.S. and spend time with my family before I lost 4 family members, both my grandmothers, my step dad as well as my dear sister, Gina in a 3 year span. God also connected us up with a wonderful church family that helped us grow closer to Him. God used the deaths in my family to bring me even closer to Him.
2007-2008, Moved to Overland Park, Kansas to bring me "through the desert" and to help prepare me to lead a BSF bible study group as well as spend time with Stan's family. He needed me away from all of my 8 year relationships that I may of depended on too much.
Feb. 2008, Moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, due to another economy slow down and a wonderful opportunity to bring our family back overseas again. We are so excited about what God has for us here in SA and how He wants us to serve him and grow in our relationship with Him.
God has redirected my path and my family's paths so many times. As Beth Moore puts it in the study of Esther, "After all, without God on our side, where we're going is just the ugly side of where we've been". I choose to stay close to Him and have Him on my side.
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