Esther Fleece Quotes

When we fake fine, we fake our way out of authentic relationship with God, others, and ourselves.

If we don’t allow painful emotions to surface, then we are setting expectations for ourselves that even God cannot meet. Nobody laments more than God Himself. And we are called to be like Him.

Pretending we are strong or being strong out of woundedness actually accomplishes very little for us in the end—and very little for God. It prevents us from being known, fears and all, and being radically accepted. There is no “fake it till you make it” in Scripture.

(Ecclesiastes 1:2). The good news is these are seasons—we aren’t meant to stay in our laments forever. We are loved by a God who is making all things new.

What’s more, lament is a pathway. Honest expression to God makes way for God to come and work His real healing. Lament is a channel for powerful transformation. It is exactly the kind of song we need for hope and healing. For so much of my life, I thought sucking it up and faking away the pain showed true strength. But real strength is identifying a wound and asking God to enter it.

Will you meet with me? Save me, for the waters have come up to my neck (Psalm 69:1). Hear my cry for help (Psalm 5:2).

A lament saves us from staying stuck in grief and rescues us from a faith based on falsehoods.

If we deny suffering as a form of blessing, then we are denying the sufferings of Christ that blessed us and brought about our freedom.

Sometimes we are fooled into thinking we can control our circumstances, and yet pursuing control actually prohibits God from meeting us just where we are. We have so much less control than we think we do. My counselor finally had to say to me, “Esther, you are trying to control things to keep Satan away, but you are actually keeping God out.” Our desire to control will keep us from being real before God.

Think for a moment of the things you try hardest to conceal. For me, it was my family history—my experience of being unwanted, abused, abandoned, not chosen. Your laments are never wasted. As we lament and receive comfort within safe community, we cannot help but extend to others the comfort we have received. Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4, emphasis mine). There is not a single trial you will face that God—the Father of compassion, the God of all comfort—does not want to comfort you in. No matter your heartache, no matter your struggle or sin, the Father’s nature and desperate desire is to comfort you! This verse holds such a beautiful promise! And it doesn’t stop there. God offers you comfort in all your troubles so you can offer that same comfort to others in any of their troubles. I take this to mean that, regardless of our experience with suffering, we are always qualified to love and comfort others in whatever struggle they are facing. “The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” equips us to minister to one another, regardless of our experience of the same sufferings. This means you don’t have to have lost a child to offer comfort to a grieving parent. You don’t have to have struggled with infertility to offer comfort to another family. I didn’t need to have experienced the loss of a spouse to offer comfort, care, and concern to my friend Bemni. You are qualified to comfort because God has comforted you Himself. It is He who works through us.

Why didn’t they ask two of the guards to go with them?” Milo asked. “A soldier’s not a servant,” I told him. “The most loyal Spartan warrior would be insulted if he was asked to be a weapons bearer, even for a prince. It looks like Castor and Polydeuces will have to take care of themselves.” Milo looked away from me. I was puzzled by this sudden shyness and tried to catch his eye, but he deliberately avoided my gaze. He reeked of guilty secrets. “You’re the one,” I said. “You’re the scrawn--the boy Castor asked to go with him.” His silence was the same as shouting Yes! I knew it. “You just told me you wanted to join the quest for the fleece. You could have done it: Why didn’t you?” “I couldn’t,” he mumbled. “Why not? Because it’s safer to talk about dreams than to try making them real? What are you so afraid of?” “Nothing!” He yelled so fiercely that a pair of oxen grazing in a nearby field snorted and moved farther away from us. It was the first time I ever saw fire in Milo’s eyes. “I’m no coward. That’s not why I wouldn’t go with your brothers. I have to go with you.” “Who said so? You’re free now, Milo. Don’t you know what that means? You can come and go anywhere you like. You ought to appreciate it.” “I appreciate you, Lady Helen!” Once Milo raised his voice, he couldn’t stop. He shouted so loudly that the two oxen trotted to the far side of the pasture as fast as they could move their massive bodies. “You’re the one who gave me my freedom. If I love to be fifty, I’ll never be able to repay you!” Milo’s uproar attracted the attention of the two guards, but I waved them back when I saw them coming toward us. “Do you think you could be grateful quietly?” I asked. “This is between us, not us and all Delphi.

Bringing back the Golden Fleece,” I repeated, mocking him. “As if it exists.” Castor frowned. “What’s biting you? Of course it exists! We told you what Jason said. It belonged to a marvelous ram sent by the gods to rescue two royal children, Phrixus and Helle, from their murderous stepmother. A pity it wasn’t a perfect rescue. Phrixus reached Colchis safely, but his sister, Helle, fell off in mid-flight and drowned. Jason says that’s why the place where she plunged into the sea’s called the Hellespont. If that doesn’t prove the story’s true, what will satisfy you?” “Anyone can give a place a name,” I said, rolling my eyes. “When I get home, I’ll name that olive grove near our training ground Wolf Forest and see what happens. A ram with a fleece of real gold, a flying ram that could carry the children through the skies to Colchis, where there are dragons, oh yes, that’s believable! That’s worth risking your lives for on a voyage across the world! I’ll bet you don’t care if that story’s true or not. You just want an excuse to go off chasing fame!” Polydeuces set a honey cake on my already heaping plate. “There must be something waiting for us in Colchis, little sister,” he said gently. “Maybe not the gold fleece of a flying ram, but something. Why would Jason go to the trouble and expense of outfitting a ship for such a long, dangerous voyage otherwise?” He smiled wistfully and added, “You mustn’t worry about us. We’ll come back; we’ll be fine.” He was right: I was worried about what would become of my brothers on that great adventure. But more than that, I envied them with all my heart. So what if the goal of their expedition was the phantom fleece of a ram that never existed? The fascinating lands my brothers would see and the exploits they’d share would be real enough. And I’d be left behind. They’ll see marvels I can’t being to imagine, I thought. Maybe they’ll even see that old sailor’s five-legged monster! Meanwhile, I’m going to be trundled home in an oxcart so thickly hedged around by Spartan soldiers that all I’ll see during my journey will be spears. It’s not fair! I can handle a sword almost as well as either of them, and I know I’m better with a bow and arrow!

What are you so afraid of?” “Nothing!” He yelled so fiercely that a pair of oxen grazing in a nearby field snorted and moved farther away from us. It was the first time I ever saw fire in Milo’s eyes. “I’m no coward. That’s not why I wouldn’t go with your brothers. I have to go with you.” “Who said so? You’re free now, Milo. Don’t you know what that means? You can come and go anywhere you like. You ought to appreciate it.” “I appreciate you, Lady Helen!” Once Milo raised his voice, he couldn’t stop. He shouted so loudly that the two oxen trotted to the far side of the pasture as fast as they could move their massive bodies. “You’re the one who gave me my freedom. If I love to be fifty, I’ll never be able to repay you!” Milo’s uproar attracted the attention of the two guards, but I waved them back when I saw them coming toward us. “Do you think you could be grateful quietly?” I asked. “This is between us, not us and all Delphi. You owe me nothing. Listen, if you leave now, you might still be able to catch up to my brothers. I’ll ask the Pythia for help. There must be at least one of Apollo’s pilgrims heading north today, one who’s going on horseback. If she tells him to carry you with him, you’ll overtake Prince Jason’s party in no time! I’ll give you whatever you’ll need for the road and--” “Then I will be in your debt,” Milo encountered. “If you say I’m free, why aren’t I free to stay with you, if that’s what I want?” “Because it’s stupid!” I forgot my own caution about keeping our voices low. I’d decided that if I couldn’t win our argument with facts, I’d do it with volume. “Don’t you see, Milo? This is a better opportunity than anything that’s waiting for you in Sparta! What could you become if you went there? A potter, a tanner, a metalsmith, maybe a farmer’s boy or a shepherd. But if you sail to Colchis with my brothers, you could be--” “Seasick,” Milo finished for me. I raised my eyebrows. “Is that why you won’t go? Not even if it means passing up a once-in-a-lifetime chance for adventures? For a real future? I’m disappointed.” Milo folded his arms. “Why don’t you just command me not to be seasick? Command me to go away and leave you, while you’re at it. Command me to join your brothers. It’s not what I want, but I guess that doesn’t matter after all.” I was about to launch into another list of reasons why he should rush after my brothers when his words stopped me. Lord Oeneus was open-handed with commands, I thought. And it was worse for Milo when his hand closed into a fist. I shouldn’t bully Milo into joining the quest for the fleece just because I wish I could do it myself. In that instant, a happy inspiration struck me with the force of one of Zeus’s own thunderbolts: Why can’t I? I found an unripe acorn lying on the ground beside me and flicked it at Milo. “All right,” I told him. “You win. You can stay with me.” A look of utter relief spread across his face until I added, “But I win too. You’re going to go with my brothers.” “But how can I do that if--?” “And so am I.

Adam and Eve were banished from the garden, the only home they’d ever known. The Israelites wandered the wilderness for forty years before they entered the Promised Land. The prophets ripped their clothing, grieved in the streets, and warned God’s people to repent and return. Jesus died the most gruesome death the Romans could come up with. And the early church faced persecution of all kinds.

We say these things because, somewhere along the way, we lost the biblical language of lament. We have not discovered the beauty in sorrow, so we try to get out of pain as quickly as possible—and we expect others to do so as well. But life will let all of us down, and we need a way to talk about it—a way we have lost along the way.

We don’t want to bother anyone with our struggles. Or we compare our brokenness to that of others by telling ourselves our experiences “weren’t that bad.” Sometimes we even joke about our difficulties, subconsciously telling ourselves that if we can just turn our pain into a punch line, we might have a fighting chance.

Unprocessed laments keep our hearts in chains. It keeps us stuck in the cycle of the wrong if/then statements we were holding on to to begin with. God wants to help our hearts get unshackled from these chains.

Joseph was falsely accused and then sent to prison for several years. David was anointed king, but waited over a decade to step into that role. The Israelites were in slavery for forty years.

But the next words in Genesis 39 deliver quite a plot twist: “But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden” (verses 20–21). Hold on. I had to read these words

Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. ECCLESIASTES 7:3 NLT

Every time God asks a question in Scripture, He already knows the answer. But isn’t it interesting what our answers reveal about our hearts? Cain made the foolish mistake of thinking he could conceal his sin from God. “‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” (Genesis 4:9).

Joseph’s life—he was abandoned. I could see my life through David’s life—he ran from an unstable man too. Jonah was so angry he wanted to die (Jonah 4:9), and Job and Jeremiah lamented even being born (Job 3:1; Jeremiah 20:14).

Here’s a lesson for you, lad.” Melitta leaned forward and poked him sharply in the ribs with one gnarled finger. “Don’t drink heavily at your enemy’s table, especially when your enemy claims to be your friend. The instant that Prince Jason swore he’d bring back the Fleece, the king quickly promised his nephew a fine new ship and supplies.” She took another bite of fish and bread before concluding, “If I had a sheep for every man who made his own trouble by swearing a stupid oath while drunk, I’d be a rich woman.

I doubt you cared this much about their feelings when you chose this path,” Iolaus said. He didn’t raise his voice. The truth doesn’t need to be shouted. “Maybe not,” I answered, looking him in the eyes. “But I had to choose it.” “That’s ridiculous.” “No more ridiculous than why you’re ready to sail into the unknown. The only person who needs to chase after the Golden Fleece is Prince Jason, yet you and all the others are joining him for the sake of pure adventure. You hunger for it! Why can’t I?” “Enough.” Iolaus raised his hand. “You win, for your brothers’ sake and because I’ve got the feeling you’d find a way to sneak aboard no matter how much they or I try to stop you. I wish some of the men I know had half your boldness. It’s strange to see it in a girl. Perhaps you’re really Atalanta’s daughter.” My smile answered his. “My nurse, Ione, said I was Zeus’s child.” “My uncle Herakles is supposed to be Zeus’s son. You two must be related. He’s a great one for following his heart first and thinking about the consequences afterward. Or never.” His teeth flashed in the shadows of the old fishwife’s home. “I’ll keep your secret.” “Thank you. You won’t have to do it for very long. You said I didn’t care about my brothers’ feelings when I decided to join this quest. You were right. I’ve only been thinking about what I want.” I took a deep breath. What I was about to say tore at my heart, but I couldn’t escape it. “I’ll go back to Delphi. It’s one thing to take a chance with my own life, but not with so many others.” “Oh, I agree,” Iolaus said. “Which is why I intend to take very good care of my new weapons bearers.

But there is no Golden Fleece. Only the Ram, bound for gold trade. You said so.” “No one Golden Fleece,” he responded, shaking a finger at me. “Colchis is rich in gold. It washes down in flakes out of the mountains. Men drop woolly sheepskins into the streams, and when they pull ’em out again, the fleeces glitter like little suns!” “What about the unsleeping dragon?” I asked. Before he could reply, we both heard the crunch of approaching footsteps and my brothers lurched into the circle of firelight. I prepared to bolt, but Polydeuces uttered a ground-shaking belch, tripped on nothing, and sprawled forward on top of me. He reeked of unwatered wine. Castor giggled. “Now look wha’ you did,” he declared, sweeping his arms wide apart. “We heard Argus tellin’ story ’bout the Fleece, all we want’s to come listen, an’ you crush poor ol’--ol’--whoever that is. I tol’ you, you drink too--too--too mush Herakles’ wine. Here, I help you up, boy.” He took three steps and fell over Polydeuces just when I’d gotten hold of his shoulders and was shoving him away. Both of my brothers flattened me in a human landslide. Argus howled with laughter.

At least we’ll sail off with a memory of how happy you look tonight.” “I am happy. You-know-who isn’t here.” I rolled my eyes in the direction of Medea’s empty chair. “I hear she’s got a headache. It must be a big one, to keep her away from seeing Lord Aetes honor her precious hero.” “Orpheus tells me she approached him about making a praise-song recounting how Jason won the Golden Fleece. You should have heard the wild ideas she wanted him to include! Fire-breathing oxen with bronze hooves, dragon’s teeth that sprout into hosts of fully armed men, an unsleeping monster guarding the Fleece--” “As if he needs her help with making imaginary monsters!” I smiled. “The closest thing I saw to a sleeping monster was one old priest, napping near the temple to Ares.