Hi! Happy Thursday!
Last week my kids and I did the story of Esther for Ask Away, and it was one of my favorites we’ve done, in part because we got to quote family-favorite The Emperor’s New Groove:
I thought it could also be fun and helpful to offer you a bit of a breakdown on the story to go along with it.
Esther is usually included in kids' resources because a hero willing to die while doing the right thing aligns so well if the goal is character formation. Plus, in a model that centers the humans, it’s nice if at least some of the humans are women. There are many women in the Bible, of course, but if you only want to talk about the ones who can turn into exemplars, the list shortens a bit.
I looked at what some popular kids curricula does with Esther. One focused on the idea “God created you for a purpose.” Some lessons focused on biblical literacy, making sure kids were told important details like exactly how long Esther was in beauty treatments.
Mostly, though, the lessons were about one thing, as one company names:
[In this lesson] kids learn the story of Esther, the beautiful queen who saves her people. Kids will learn lessons about being brave.
(Do I want to go on a rant about exploration of the ‘beautiful’ part. I do.
I do. But I won’t.)
God-centered storytelling invites kids to consider how this story that never names God still shows us something about who God is and what God’s like. It lets all the humans be, humans (even if they weren’t literal humans).
So, if we don’t say, “Go be courageous”, what do we say about Esther?
Let’s dive in!
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