When you hear the word courage, what or who do you think of? For me, it is the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz because it was the very first movie I ever remember seeing where someone was so sacred of absolutely everything. No one ever taught him that courage is not the absence of fear or that you must know fear before you can have courage. We all know what fear is and just how crippling it can be, but it is when we step out of that fear and walk into the unknown that we have the courage to be brave.
My oldest daughter as a little girl struggled with being brave. She, like the lion, was scared of everything. One day my husband asked her to name one thing she wasn’t scared of and after an extremely long pause,
through tears she said, “I am not afraid of a butterfly.” From that point on she had butterfly faith. She had complete trust in that butterfly not to harm her. Over time she began to expand her trust and develop the courage to be brave in so many situations. Being brave is not easy and it does’t matter how old you are. Often times just using your words and speaking up is all it takes.
Words….”something that someone says or writes; a remark or piece of information.” Esther, the queen we all love, had a piece of information that would change her life forever. A man named Haman had a plot to kill all the Jews in Persia. If Esther remained silent and didn’t tell the king about the plot and her true identity, she would die along with her people. On the other hand, Esther herself was facing death by King Xerxes if she spoke up due to the laws about speaking freely to the king. She was in a dilemma that brought her death either way. The circumstances were terrible, but Esther’s true identity was greater than the circumstances she was facing. I think often times we get so caught up in the circumstances that we forget who we are and whose we are. I think we fear what “might” happen so we remain silent even though that silence does not change the circumstances. When Esther stepped out of her fear and walked into the unknown, she had the courage to be brave and speak. My favorite lesson from the entire book of Esther is that in her weakest moment she was building faith for generations to come. Whose faith are you building? Even if for the moment you have butterfly faith remember that using your words and speaking up might just give you the courage to be brave.