A Keen Perspective

 In a world where submission is often seen as the ultimate virtue for women, Queen Vashti dared to be different. This ancient Persian queen refused to be paraded in front of her husband's drunken friends, and in doing so, became an unlikely hero for modern women everywhere. Let's set the scene: King Ahasuerus (aka Xerxes) was throwing a lavish party, and he wanted to show off his queen's beauty to impress his guests with his own prestige and masculinity. But Vashti was like, "Uh, no thanks. I'm good." And with that, she became the first recorded queen to give her husband the old "talk to the hand." You know, that classic move where you dismiss someone with a flick of the wrist and a whole lot of sass. Funny thing is, my soon-to-be ex used to tell me to "talk to the hand" all the time. I guess he didn't realize he was actually training me in the ancient art of Vashti-style assertiveness!  Now, some might say Vashti was disobedient or reb...

As I drove down the road today, I witnessed a tragic event that made me pause and ponder the fleeting nature of life. An oncoming car struck a squirrel who was scurrying out to gather some nuts that had fallen from an overhead tree. In less than a blink of an eye, the squirrel's life was extinguished. Talk about a nutty reminder of our mortality! It hit me (pun intended): we're all just like that squirrel, busily scurrying around, trying to gather our own "nuts" - whether that's wealth, success, or happiness. But in a split second, our lives can change forever. As the Bible says, "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 4:14) But here's the thing: while we can't control the length of our lives, we can control how we live them. So, let's not get too caught up in chasing after nuts (okay, I'll stop with the squirrel analogies now, I pro...