One of the most conflicting books of The Bible for her is the book of Esther. Long has she identified with Queen Vashti and her spiritedness. She had the courage to tell a group of drunken fools that they would not treat her like an object to be looked at and played with. This, however, cost her the conditional queendom that she was temporarily perched upon.

She has never been able to identify with the sweet, little virginal Esther who asked no questions but went into the King’s bedroom to be used at his disposal and tossed aside for the next virgin when he was done with her. The fact that she became the next queen to this infantile man-child gives her little encouragement.

Since all of life is temporary and the people in our lives our temporary, she would like to think that although Vashti was removed from a life of luxury and banished to obscurity and poverty, she perhaps found peace and contentment with herself. The patriarchal society that we as women find ourselves oppressed under must change if humanity is to consider itself anything like the Christ we proclaim to revere. It breaks her heart to think that Christ’s Kingdom is anything like the backward kingdoms ruled by childish men here on earth.

It may very well be that submissive and obedient women like Esther are the only women who gain access to earthly kingdoms. However, she lives for the eternal Kingdom of God where she will be loved and nurtured as worthy of God’s favor and where no man will be able to dismiss her for not accepting a “temporary” role beneath him. There is a place for her to be fully woman and fully human. Perhaps, she may even find this place within herself while she lives here on this earth. But if not, she believes that she will experience this fullness of humanity in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth when Christ returns to set us all free.