For such a time as this

Have you ever wished you had been born in a different time period? I have. People have even suggested that I might fit better in the eighteenth century. As one friend half-jokingly said, I love children and want lots of them, I like to cook and make things, and I think abortion is bad. Surely I was born in the wrong century? Particularly as I began to question feminism, I wondered if I could ever live out these new-found but old values in this time and place. Surely life would at least be easier if I had been born a few centuries ago?

Nancy Leigh deMoss uses the fourth chapter of Voices of the True Woman Movement, "for such a time as this", to challenge thinking like this. She encourages readers with truth from the life of Queen Esther in the Old Testament. This quote sums it up: "Whatever your season of life, your marital status, your vocation, your natural gifting, you have been given privileges, opportunities, and a place in the kingdom - the kingdom of man - at this time, to be used to further the Kingdom of God."

I have been thinking about some of the ways we could even be more useful in displaying God's glory because we live now, in a time when many of our values are questioned or despised. If you are a Christian woman born in the second half of the twentieth century, maybe you were born to:

• Delight in relationship with God, even as society around us embraces unbelief and ungodliness
• Build up the church even as church attendance reaches all-time lows
• Display contentment in the midst of materialism and envy
• Honor and obey your husband as marriages around you are riddled with anger and gossip
• Create a beautiful, productive and orderly home even when most believe your job description - "homemaker" - is a joke
• Serve God with your single years instead of pursuing frivolity and selfish ambition
• Cherish the gift of children although many view them as burdens, and think having many of them is foolish

Wow! We have no idea of the effect we can have as we seek to be faithful in our time and place. As deMoss writes, "the natural, visible story is not the ultimate story." You were born for such a time as this, to build God's kingdom and display the beauty of the gospel. Your story and that of every Christian is "really about God and His agenda, God and His aims, God and His purposes."