Prepared in Beauty (Part 1)...

"She had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics." Esther 2:12

In the bible, we learn about Esther being taken to the palace to compete to become the new queen of Persia.  Literally Esther had to undergo beauty treatments for an entire year.  Talk about "spa" paradise!  Can you imagine spending that much time getting to play with make up, getting massages and facials, ahh, and the perfumes!?  Sounds like fun to me...but then I've always loved playing with make up and all that "girly" stuff. 

What's interesting is that Esther was already naturally beautiful.  God's word tells us she was "lovely in form and features" (Esther 2:7)   So if she was already a natural beauty, why a year's worth of beauty treatments?
Why were the details of Esther's story important?  Why not just tell us that she became queen and then move on to the meat of the story?  

One thing I know is that God was intentional about ALL that is in His word. And as the writer of Esther was inspired by His Holy Spirit, then there must have been a purpose behind it.  What do you think it was? 

Here are some thoughts of mine:

I know that Hebrews tells us that God's word is living and active.  That means that even all those years ago, God knew that His word would have meaning for us in the year 2012!  Alive and Active...even in our culture.  I love how He has always been thinking about us, and how He wants to make this story revelation for us today.  I love how beauty was God's idea in the first place.  I love how beautiful we are in His sight. I love how liberating this story is for us as girls! 

The process of preparation is important to God...it really is ok to make the most of our physical beauty.  To take care of our health and our body.  Can we get out of balance though when it comes to "outer" beauty?  You bet we can!  It can become an idol to us, especially when we worry more about how we look than how we LOVE!  It can consume our time, our thought life...it can become vanity and even sinful.  Outer beauty can be used to manipulate and control to get what we want.   Sometimes it can be subtle, sometimes just outright obvious. Or we can take the other extreme and be consumed in self condemnation, even self hate.  Those paths lead to very dangerous roads. Roads of bondage.  Neither of these extremes are God's intent for us.    He doesn't want us to live in bondage of any kind. Satan will do his thing and try to pervert it. He'll either make us feel guilty for being beautiful, or beat us up for not measuring up.   Remember, Jesus came to set us free.  Free from all that keeps us bound.

The other thing I notice about Esther's story is that while she was "lovely in form and feature", she couldn't have been the ONLY beautiful girl there.  So it had to be something more than just physical beauty that caused her to stand out to the king.  I believe it was her inner beauty that set her apart from all the others and made her most beautiful.  Radiating Jesus...from the inside out...will be what makes any girl stand out.  Beauty is a gift from God, and the most beautiful we will ever be is when we are reflecting Him.  But more on that next week...Prepared in Beauty (Part 2)...to be continued.