She Covered the Children
Gunfire doesn’t give you time to think. It gives you a split second to choose: stay hidden, or move toward someone who can’t move fast enough.
That choice confronted a 14-year-old Jewish girl named Chaya Dadon at the deadly Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. In the chaos, she saw two small children stranded beside their wounded parents. Exposed. Vulnerable. Unable to outrun what was happening.
Chaya was already under cover. She had every reason to stay there.
Instead, she stepped out.
She pulled the children to safety and covered them with her own body. She was shot in the thigh, and she kept shielding them, praying as she stayed over them until help came and her father found her.
Later, she described the moment with a steadiness that stops you cold. She said she felt God right beside her, and she heard what she understood as a clear instruction: “This is your mission: go save those kids.”
Some days, being a modern-day Esther means using your voice and influence. Other days, it means being unbelievably brave. It means protecting someone else when fear is screaming at everyone to run.
This was terror, aimed at Jews, and it demanded extraordinary choices
This was a horrific terror attack aimed at Jews celebrating at a family event. And it forced ordinary people into extraordinary choices: to step in and help someone else, even if it meant they might be harmed, even if it meant they might perish.
That is where Esther steps out of history and into our moment.
Because Esther courage isn’t a personality trait. It is obedience in the moment. It is doing what is right when doing what is right suddenly feels costly.
Esther 4:14 is not a slogan. It is a summons.
Mordecai didn’t speak to Esther with soft words. He spoke with urgency, because urgency is what pulls courage out of hiding:
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14
Read that again, slowly.
There is a warning in it. There is a promise in it. And there is a question that lands on every believing woman who loves Israel and the Jewish people:
Will I stay silent, or will I step into what God placed in front of me?
For Esther, it was influence. For Chaya, it was protection.
For you, it may be your voice. Your giving. Your prayers. Your willingness to speak clearly when the world is trying to intimidate everyone into whispering.
This is why we build modern-day Esthers. Because Jew-hatred will not go away on its own, it is a cancer. It is confronted by truth, prayer, courage, and women who refuse to look away.
If God is stirring you, do not dismiss it. Step into your calling as a modern-day Esther and help Christian Women For Israel raise up women who will stand with Israel and the Jewish people, boldly and faithfully, for such a time as this.
Stand with Israel as a Modern-Day Esther
When you give to Christian Women For Israel, you help comfort God’s people, push back rising antisemitism, and raise up modern-day Esthers who pray, teach, and act “for such a time as this.”
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