Wide Awake! (Esther 6)

Wide Awake! (Esther 6)

Esther 6.1 That night the king could not sleep. So one was commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. [nkjv]

When she was 17 years old, Ila Manner discovered she was pregnant. It was Florida 1968 and her parents decided it was in the family's best interest to keep the pregnancy a secret. They admitted their daughter into the Florence Crittenton Home for unwed mothers. On the 9th August 1968, after two days of labour, Ila gave birth to a baby boy. Although she wasn't allowed to hold him, deep down she secretly hoped that someday she would find her son again.

Three weeks after his birth, Ben, as he was later named, was adopted by a loving family and moved 3,000 miles away to San Francisco. Ila went on to marry and had a daughter named Kari. They moved to New York and she established herself there as a successful jewelry designer.

It wasn't until many years later that Kari stumbled across the family secret and learned of the existence of her older brother. She began a search for her missing sibling, hiring investigators, researching adoption records but hitting legal roadblocks along the way. The same roadblocks Ben was finding in his search for his mother.

After 11 years of fruitless investigation, Kari called it quits and decided to follow in her mother's footsteps and pursue a career in the jewelry business. Although successful in New York, she felt the urge to move to San Francisco, despite the fact that she knew no one there. She found a roommate by the name of Erin Kehoe. Erin introduced Kari to a few of her friends. One night in July 2002, while out at a popular nightspot, Erin introduced Kari to one of her oldest friends, Ben Davis!

Without realising who he was, Kari struck up a friendship with Ben. A few weeks later over dinner, Kari shared with Ben her search for her brother and how unlucky she was. Ben weighed in, "I know what you mean, I have been trying to find my mother without any luck." When Kari mentioned her brother's birthday, Ben stared in disbelief and said, "that's my birthday!"

To cut a long story short, after DNA tests proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ben was in fact Kari's brother, Ila flew from New York to San Fransico to meet the baby she gave up 34 years earlier. She later told reporters, "I walked up to him ever so slowly and I put out my hand. And I touched his face. And it was exquisite, to touch my baby."

I don't believe in coincidence!

Although God is not mentioned in the book of Esther, His fingerprints can be found all over the pages. It was not a coincidence that the king couldn't sleep, that he chose to read a specific book, that through reading this book learned of the lack of appreciation shown to Mordecai, at the exact same moment Hayman, a man hell bent on destroying the Jewish people, walked into the room.

All little incidents, which by themselves seem insignificant but together all point to one undeniable truth - God is in control!

This is sometimes difficult for us to understand, especially when bad things happen. But we must trust the total plan. No matter what we face, God is not taken by surprise. Scripture tells me that 'all things work together.' Any one event taken in isolation may seem to make no sense but when we see all things, good and bad, working together, we then see the ultimate wisdom of God's plan and love of our Heavenly Father.