Esther Isn't a Pep Talk for Eleven-Year-Olds

I think we teach Esther 4:14 backwards. We hand it to children as an answer (you were born for this) and an eleven-year-old hears a job assignment he has no idea how to do. Next week's Come, Follow Me reading is Esther (the lesson is titled "Thou Art Come ... for Such a Time as This"), and I've been turning that verse over since the Church News piece came out this morning, because Caleb starts sixth grade on August 19 and I'd like to read it with him without handing him a cape.

The verse is a question, which I'd read a hundred times before I noticed.

What "for such a time as this" actually says

Here is the whole of it, with the part we always quote sitting at the very end.

"For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there 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?" (Esther 4:14)

Look at what Mordecai picks for his last word. It's "who knoweth," which is what a person says when he doesn't know and is willing to say so. Before that he tells her help will come from another place if she keeps quiet, so she's one possible rescuer among several and the thing on the table is whether she'll go in.

I find that kinder than the poster version, since a child can answer a question and all he can do with a destiny is wait for it to show up.

Esther's first answer is a list of reasons she can't, because she reminds Mordecai of the rule that anyone who goes in to the king uninvited can be put to death unless the king holds out the golden scepter, and she adds that she hasn't been called in thirty days (Esther 4:11). I love that detail. The queen of Persia is afraid, and she gives him the number of days since the king last wanted her, as if that settles it, which is the most eleven-year-old thing in the chapter. What she finally sends back is a request that everyone fast three days, and then "if I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16).

The piece I'd skip past if I were being quick comes from years before any of this, when Esther says nothing about who her people are. Mordecai charged her not to (Esther 2:10) and she did as he said (Esther 2:20). All the text tells us about that stretch is that she "obtained favour in the sight of all them that looked upon her" (Esther 2:15), which sounds like a well-liked girl in a palace full of people who didn't know the one thing about her that mattered to her.

Caleb and the lunch table

He told me on the cabin steps last night, throwing a flat rock at the gravel because the lake was a hundred yards off and he needed something to do with his arm. Nobody at school has ever been unkind to him about church. His best friend Owen has known since T-ball, and I wrote a while back about how that friendship has gone, in Caleb's best friend isn't LDS and his mom hid the coffee maker.

Sixth grade means a bigger cafeteria and a bigger table, with the same four boys and a group chat, and he's the one who goes quiet when plans land on a Sunday. Nobody is going to throw anything at him. He's afraid of the afternoon when somebody says "wait, why can't you?" with six other boys looking up from their trays, and he has about two seconds to decide whether to explain a Sabbath to a table of eleven-year-olds or say "I just can't" and let it sit there.

I taught third grade for five years and the lunchroom is where children find out who they are to each other. Teachers stand at the edge of it with a clipboard and mostly watch who's holding a tray alone.

I didn't give him a line. I told him I'd probably bring Esther to the table on Monday, and he said "the queen one?" and went to find a better rock.

Luana and the same seat

Somebody who isn't me or Caleb knows more about this than I do, so I'll tell you about her.

When Emma was in Caruaru in the early part of 2025 she wrote her Monday email about a girl named Luana, fifteen, the only member of the church in a public school class of about thirty-five. Luana had been baptized the year before. Emma and her companion went to the house on Thursdays, and Luana's mother put cuscuz with a fried egg in front of them before anybody had said a word about the lesson.

Emma wrote that nobody had been mean to Luana, they only asked her things at the wrong time, like why she wasn't at the Friday party that ran past midnight into Saturday, or what the letters were on her bracelet. She had no speech prepared. She told Emma, and Emma typed it in Portuguese because she knew I'd want the exact words, that she answered the question she was asked and went on eating her lunch. If somebody wanted more she gave a little more, and mostly nobody did.

Emma left that area before the school year ended, so she doesn't know how it came out. In June Luana sent her a short message, five words that even my rusty Portuguese can read: ainda sento no mesmo lugar. I still sit in the same place.

I've thought about that line more than anything in the Church News article. Luana sat at the same table week after week with a question or two landing on her now and then, and when I put that next to "if I perish, I perish" I don't feel I've shortchanged either one.

What I'll say to Caleb

I don't think he was put at that table on purpose. Haman's plot was Haman's, and the text says plainly why he made it (Esther 3:5-6), which keeps me from turning a story of deliverance into one about the Lord arranging a lunchroom. Whether it will be fine I can't say, and he'd hear it in my voice if I pretended. What I wanted at eleven was for somebody to say the fear made sense, so I'll say that.

He doesn't have to explain church to anyone, and he can answer the question he's asked the way Luana did and keep eating. "I go to church Sunday mornings and then we call my grandma" is a whole answer. If he decides on some Tuesday that he wants to say more, that's his choice and it doesn't need to come with a testimony.

Esther asked everyone to fast with her before she went in. On the nineteenth his dad and I will be in the kitchen when he gets home, and we'll ask about the day, and if he says "fine" we'll leave it there until supper.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does "for such a time as this" mean my child is meant to do something big?

Not that I can find in the verse. Mordecai asks a question and leaves it hanging, and plenty of faithful people never get one dramatic moment at all.

Should my kid tell classmates they're LDS?

I wouldn't push it in either direction. Esther kept quiet for years and the text doesn't scold her for it. I'd tell a sixth grader that he can answer plainly when he's asked and doesn't owe anyone more, and then I'd listen at home for how it felt.

Is it okay for a child to be scared about this?

Yes, say so out loud. Esther was scared and the book tells us so. A nervous kid who gets "oh, you'll be great" learns the nervous part is supposed to be hidden.

What if he doesn't want to talk about it?

Mine mostly doesn't, unless it's on the steps or in the dark at bedtime, so I don't set up a conversation. I sit near him and shell peas or fold towels and wait. If nothing comes out that night it'll keep.

One thing I'd like to hear from you

This week I'll read Esther with a boy who would very much like to sit at the same table as everyone else, and I'd like to have more to offer him than my own memory. If you were ever the only one at your table at eleven or twelve, what did somebody do that you still remember, or fail to do?

with love, Melissa