Abigail

Abigail was beautiful and intelligent. That is how she is described. Strangely, she was married to a man named Nabal and he was a fool. How often are intelligent people married to fools? More often than we care to admit I am sure.
And so it happens that during the time that David was hiding out from king Saul who was trying to kill him, David and his men protected the livestock and servants of this man named Nabal. When it was shearing time, they had big festivities and feasts. David sends a messenger to Nabal and says to him, we have protected your servants and your livestock, please send us whatever you will to provide for us. He could have demanded a specific price, but he knew that his true Provider was God above, so he said whatever you will. Nabal, fool that he was, sends the message back stating that he did not even know David and owed him nothing. Needless to say, David is surely on the way to destroy the entire house as he is a warrior.
One of Abigail's servants comes and tells her what Nabal said to David. She quickly puts together meat, wine, and bread along with blankets and other items David and his men may need and puts this on the back of donkeys and sends it ahead of her. She then gets on a donkey herself and goes to David. She did not tell her husband the fool, what she was doing. She goes out to meet David as he is on the way to destroy her entire household. She falls down on her face, bowing low before him and she tells him to place all the blame on her. She asks him to forgive her, that she was not there when his servant came to her house and that she hopes the gifts she brought will be enough for him to spare her household. David tells her to rise and that she is very much appreciated for saving him from destroying the house of Nabal. He tells her to go home, that she will receive what she asked him for, meaning her house would not be attacked.
She goes home, Nabal is drunk so she cannot tell him what she did right then, and she decides to go to bed and tell him in the morning. She wakes up, he is sober, she tells him how she saved his household. God strikes his heart and it becomes a stone in his chest, which means he went into a coma. He was in the coma for 10 days, then the Lord struck him again and he died.
This is what I find amazing about Abigail... She is in an ugly situation, her marriage was not chosen by her, her family arranged it and she is married to a fool. There is no out, no divorce, no options. So she tries to work around her situation and save her servants and the fool too. She falls down in humility before David. He had already been annointed as the king of Israel, and she gives him the respect of his future position. She talks sense into an angry man. How often will we yell back instead of trying to diffuse the situation? Obviously it is better to try to diffuse it. She did this with both David and Nabal. With David, she tried to appease him and give him more than enough to compensate for the wrong of Nabal. With Nabal, she tried to wait until the right time, then calmly tell him the truth, willing to accept the consequences of her actions. On both occasions, God stepped in and fixed the situation.
The ending of the story is that David sent his servants back to Abigail and asked her to be his wife. She tells the servants of David, that she is a servant to their master and willing to wash the feet of his servants. This is an amazing show of humility. She is willing to put herself below the place of the servant and wash their feet. She goes back and marries David. Man gave her a fool in marriage, God gave her a king.