Waiting and preparation

As Esther joins the harem, she gets special beauty treatments in preparation for meeting the king. It seems to take five years before she actually gets to meet the king (beauty treatments took a year, but then the girls were taken in turn to the king), but then he falls in love with her straightaway and makes her his queen. There are great celebrations: a special dinner, a national holiday, and Esther joins the wives.

It was all worth waiting for.

Esther has made friends, especially the king's personal servant Hegai who had advised Esther and told her what to take with her when she went to the king. (I can't begin to imagine all the sexual tricks and contrivances Esther had probably become acquainted with during her time of preparation. I'm not going there.)

She is queen, with a hugely prominent position within the country.

And what, in this situation, did Esther see as 'good'? Would she have preferred to stay with Mordecai, living simply and humbly away from palace intrigue? Or in the security of the harem, rather than becoming queen...did the shadow of Vashti and her downfall loom over her? Or was she simply delighted to have become Xerxes' wife?....

Who would have thought that an orphaned foreigner could attain such heights?

Esther 2:12 - 18