Anxiety seems to be a common experience. Our spiritual ancestors of 2025 years ago also had anxiety. We feel set apart, and alone. Esther, a Jewish woman and queen to King Assuerus of Persia, used her influence to avert a massacre of her people by the Persians. As she prepares to enter the presence of the king she prays to God to stretch his protecting hand over his people and to help her in the task she has to do. She acknowledges her weakness and that without God’s help there is nothing she can do. She remembers God’s promises to his people, chosen as a “lasting inheritance”. She knows that she and her people are in God’s hands. She does not try to manipulate God or bargain with him. She surrenders this battle totally to him. We are encouraged by today’s Gospel to ask, search and to knock as a way of acknowledging our total dependence on God. No matter what we ask for, let us leave our struggles, battles, sicknesses and anxieties, totally in his hands.

Abba Father, in all my struggles and battles let your will be done. Amen.