For such a time as this. The words from Esther’s story settle into the quiet places of my heart like a bell that keeps ringing, clear and steady. Esther did not arrive in the palace with a plan. She arrived with a posture, a heart inclined toward courage, obedience, and intercession. She listened, she fasted, she asked others to pray, then she stepped forward even when the outcome was uncertain. Her bravery was not loud bravado, it was a holy resolve that chose people over comfort, purpose over fear, and God’s timing over her own.

When I think of Erika Kirk, I hear that same bell. Not because her life mirrors Esther in circumstance, but because her response mirrors Esther in spirit. A wife who honored her husband’s calling, a mother who carries her children close, a woman who speaks life into a culture that is short on mercy and long on noise. Erika’s strength has not been measured by a platform, it has been revealed in the way she loves, the way she points to Jesus, the way she keeps the mission centered on people, families, and the next generation.

Esther’s courage began in private before it was ever seen in public. The fasting, the tears, the wrestling. The same is true for women who hold the line in their homes and communities. I picture late nights in kitchens that smell like coffee, folded laundry stacked as high as the week has been long, Bibles open to familiar pages, prayers whispered over children who are learning what it means to be both brave and kind. I picture Erika there too, steady in prayer, steady in purpose, asking God to shape a generation and use every ordinary moment to form extraordinary faith.

The stakes are still real today, not only in courts and halls of power, but at dinner tables and school hallways, on practice fields and church steps. Young men and women are hungry for something true. They are weary of applause without meaning, success without soul. They need guides who will stand against the current of a culture that pushes them toward cynicism and call them back to courage, responsibility, and love. Erika has used her voice for this work: to honor the design of family, to champion the next generation, to say that our nation is strongest when hearts are turned toward God and homes are built on grace and truth.

Real courage often carries tenderness with it. Esther knew this when she approached the throne, and I see it in women who hold both grief and hope in their hands. To be brave does not mean to be unbreakable. It means to be surrendered, to show up even when our voices tremble, to trust that God can do more with our yes than we can do with a lifetime of perfect plans. Erika has lived that kind of yes, a quiet faithfulness that reminds us God is not finished writing redemption into our families and our nation.

Esther’s words, and the God who authored them, call us to our own posts. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, mentors, pastors, teachers, neighbors. We are all appointed to a circle of influence, however small it may seem, and the faithfulness we bring to that circle matters. When we pray over our children, when we speak respectfully to our spouses, when we forgive quickly, when we choose service over applause, when we teach our boys to honor women and our girls to walk in dignity, we are living the kind of courage that saves a people.

I want to be the kind of woman who carries Esther’s courage into my everyday life, and I want to honor women like Erika who carry it into theirs. Not perfection, not performance, but presence. A life that says, here I am Lord, use me. A life that remembers God plants us in specific places for specific reasons, and that obedience, even in the smallest things, can turn the course of a generation.

So we lift our eyes and our prayers. We ask for wisdom, courage, and a double portion of grace. We stand in the gap for the young, we love our enemies as fiercely as we love our friends, and we honor the memory of those who ran before us by running our race with faithfulness. And when we hear the bell of Esther’s words, for such a time as this, we answer as Erika has answered, with a steady yes that sounds like worship and a faith strong enough to meet this moment.