How Ready Is Ready Enough?

Esther 4:14
[Mordecai to Esther] For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

When I signed up to train at the local crisis pregnancy center, I did not fully know that I was training to be a client advocate, a job for which I felt utterly unready. By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. 

It was one of the best mistakes of my life.

Now, over five years later, I still feel inadequate when I love and support a woman in her journey as a mother. Am I adequate? No. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But I’ve still seen growth—in the women and in me. I’ve seen God work beautiful things through my own unreadiness.

I am not the only woman who feels unready for life’s requirements. Miriam Grossman’s book Unprotected points out that many women delay having a family in order to pursue a career. By the time these women feel “ready” for children, it is already too late to conceive.

What if Queen Esther had delayed her appeal on behalf of the Jews until she felt “ready”? Yes, she appealed to the Lord in three days of prayer and fasting, but the Bible does not say she was divinely reassured during that time. Yet she took action anyway, trusting in the Lord’s goodness—and she saved the entire Jewish nation.

What woman feels ready to share Christ with a co-worker or neighbor? Raise a family? Start a home business? Minister full-time? Lay all hopes and dreams aside in the pursuit of Christ?

The woman who is ready is the woman who does nothing. Our state of readiness will not declare God to the world—but our actions will. Go in His readiness!