Esther was a Queen, and secretly Jewish and living in Persia. The Persian king Ahasuerus had decided to commit genocide against her people living in exile within his realm. She prayed to the Lord for deliverance for them.

An excerpt from the First Reading from today’s Mass on the Thursday of the First Week of Lent:

Eshter C: 12

“And Esther the queen, seized with deathly anxiety, fled to the Lord…”

via EWTN.

“Deathly anxiety,” some translations read “mortal anguish.” Anyway, we’ve all been there in the depths of our drinking or using. We reached that point where we have to decide, “Do I continue to drink and then die, or do I wish to stop and just wish I were dead? (knowing full well the pain of facing life without the crutch of alcohol).”

Be it mortal anguish or deathly anxiety, what would seem like an easy choice for most people is fraught with pain as you cannot see a way out.

And you have no recourse except to the Lord. For many of us, He sent someone or arranged a situation where we were pulled out. And sometimes we did not see the help offered.

Pray for those who still suffer…

(Lest anyone think I am making light of attempted genocide by linking Esther’s actions to a person suffering from addiction and seeking a way out; I am not. One goal of this blog is to link Sacred Scripture to recovery, even when the connection doesn’t really exist. Scripture is about salvation for all, God’s plan for humanity as revealed over time. At times we can draw something from Scripture that is not a direct connection with the original event.)

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