Abandoned part 4…NO DESTINATION

Knock…the pounding on the door grew louder.

Vashti’s heart began to race.

Was she being summoned by the King?  

Frozen in fear, she nodded to her maid servant giving her permission to answer the door. 

On the other side of the door stood an entourage of King Xerxes men. Pushing their way through the palace door caused an odd hush over the crowd of women. As they stood in their authority, a summon was given to the queen.  Her fear became a reality.  The King was summoning her presence at his party in the courtyard.

“On the seventh day of the feast, when King Xerxes was in high spirits because of the wine, he told the seven eunuchs who attended him…to bring Queen Vashti to him with the royal crown on her head. He wanted the nobles and all the other men to gaze on her beauty, for she was a very beautiful woman.” Esther 1:10,11

If she stepped out of the palace and stepped into the courtyard, whatever dignity she had for herself would be lost.  Time and time again she had obeyed the King’s request sacrificing herself as a woman. The thought of stepping into a group of drunken men gazing at her, lusting for her body caused an ache inside her that she couldn’t escaped.  

She just couldn’t do it. 

She couldn’t do it for herself.

She couldn’t do it for the women who stood before her.

She couldn’t for the child who was growing within her womb.

Looking firmly into the eyes of these men, she shook her head no.

“This made the king furious, and he burned with anger.” Esther 1:12

“He immediately consulted with his wise advisers…” Esther 1:13

‘” What must be done to Queen Vashti?’ the king demanded.” Esther 1:15

“…we suggest that you issue a written decree…It should order that Queen Vashti be forever banished from the presence of King Xerxes, and that the king should choose another queen more worthy than she.” Esther 1:19

The day had given way to the night.

 As the sun slid from the sky, darkness became the covering for those who feared the light. 

As the shadows thickened, the queen felt a blanket of safety.

It had been decreed that she could no longer come into the presence of the King.

 Five years had passed since her dismissal, but her heart still broke in her loss. 

The news of a new queen sunk deep into her aching soul.

Every day was a fight to keep this pain tucked away.

But tonight, her pain of dismissal gave way to her curiosity. 

If she could see the truth of her reality, maybe she could move forward.

Quietly she made her way past the guards at the palace.

As she made her way to the inner courts, she stood quietly in the darkness of the shadows watching the king and the new queen make their way through the court. 

As she watched, the pain within her heart grew so large that she felt as though her heart would truly burst.

The longer she stood, the more her heart felt the pain of loss. 

As the king and new queen made their way through the courtyard, Vashti knew that her love for the King had been replaced with the love of the new queen.

As she stood in the shadows observing their love,

Her heart felt lost.

Her heart felt dismissed.

Her heart felt abandoned.

Slipping away in the shadows, she returned to her world of non-existence.

How could a life that was once filled with purpose become a life of non-existence?

One act of disobedience gave way to a life of solitude.

Dismissal…

              Abandonment…

                           Silenced…

                                         Pushed aside…

Girls let those words sink in.

When you look deep inside, are these feelings and emotions that strike a chord in you?

Woven within this story of royalty and male supremacy lies the heart and soul of a queen who once was. This is a story of a woman who fought for herself.  She fought for her own dignity because of what she believed for herself. She disobeyed the king so she could save the queen…herself. But this story gets lost just as she was lost and often how we feel lost.  It is tossed out with the premise of a disobedient queen instead of a story strength of a tenacious woman. 

Look at your own life experiences. There are moments when we feel as though we are talked around or over or under.  But the worst of those feelings is when we feel as though they are talking through us as though we do not exist. But what we long for is to be heard and seen.

Do you feel what Vashti must have felt?

Were you once the chosen one only to be tossed aside because of a choice or decision that you made to save your own dignity?

Or maybe you did obey but still was pushed aside?

“Go to your room.”

“You disgust me.”

“You are not my friend anymore.”

“Stop crying.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I don’t love you anymore.”

Messages that we heard as children and still feel as adults.  Messages that seep deep within us causing each layer of dismissal to make us feel smaller and smaller until we finally exist within a world as an invisible soul. We exist with a shell of confidence that houses the truth of our inadequacies and feelings of dismissal causing us to interact in our abandonment. We have so much to say but there is no one listening.

Mary sat in her car trying to soak in the chain of events that led to her dismissal.

What happened?

How did her life go from seen to unseen?

Why were her pictures no longer handing on the walls in her room but now packed in boxes by those she once considered friends?

Where does she go from here?

Feeling lost and alone, she turns on the ignition and begins to drive away. 

No destination, just movement.