Don't Sell Yourself Short!

            So about a month ago I started a Mary Kay business. I started to have fun, talk about great products, make some extra money, and just to get out of my own head.  Each week we get points for what we do, 50 points for meeting attendance, 50 points for other things and so on and so forth. Last week it turns out I shorted myself almost 800 points! I was under the impression that a sale was 1 point as in you sold stuff you got one point. But no no no, it is 1 point for each dolor. I sold 800.00 worth of product so I got 800 points plus 300 more! This made me the queen of sales for the week, and that was awesome I wont like. But it was not the take away for me.

            I have been chewing on this idea of selling yourself short a lot. I know that I do it all the time, saying ‘oh I’m not good enough for that job/class/internship/church/ect’ or ‘oh they are to perfect to be friends with me’ or ‘I’m so stupid, all I’ll ever be is stupid’. Now I know this is not true at all, but when you get into a cycle like this it’s hard to get out of it and thus you continue to sell yourself short.

            This led me to Jeremiah 1:4-1:10, or titled the call of Jeremiah. I keep telling myself especially in the last year that God does not call the accomplished, or the best or the heroes, or the people that know what’s going on. God calls the right people for the right call, and then equips them for the right ministry’s, and develops and encourages growth of gifts innate within the person.

            So many of our Biblical hero’s where zeros. They told God, so not me I am not worthy go pick someone else (and then point to someone else). But like God said to Moses, you are worthy in my sight and I appoint Aaron to help you. God 1, Moses 0. So who are we as the Beloved Children of God to sell ourselves short?  God will take care of you, me, and us as well as those we have yet to meet.*

*This line inspired by the hymn God Will Take Care of You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijytLs96yig

Considering Other Voices

For my New Testement class, I am writing a midterm where I dare to consider the other voices that are related to the authentic Pauline letters.  Well it is fun to imagine what the women of Corinth might have said to Paul (Paul, take a hike we are done having bake sales for missions) or what Philemon might say to Paul (I’m troubled that you think that I would mistreat a salve).  It is important to think what our writings today also say and who’s voices we do not hear.

            I also just finished Sara and the author Marek Halter, dares to think in the first installment of a series what was Sara doing when she was still Sari. Why did she do the things she does in the Bible.  Well I was not pleased with how he handled some of the fillers for the parts of the story we do know (the Binding of Isaac, her death). I valued that he yes a he dared to take a listen to the text between the texts. He also writes about Zipporah, Wife of Moses Lilith and Mary mother of God.  I cannot wait to read the other ones in the series!

            He describes himself in the author interview as a storyteller and the Jewish faith has a long standing tradition of expanding the stories in the Hebrew Bible in a Midrash( Living with contradiction). They fills in many gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at  Do we dare to write the stories of those outside the written and accepted text? Do we even think about them, consider them and the impact they have on our understanding? 

           

      If we dare to think about the ‘other’ does this now mean that we must act differently towards the other. To think that these stories and letters are not just fables but rather discuss issues that our ancestors had then and we still have now. But maybe if we think about them we can find ways to solve some of the problems from the ways that it did not work out for our ancestors.