The Struggle with Feeling Worthy (Divine Nature of Women Series 1 of 7)

Dear Reader,

Did you know that 75% of women executives feel imposter syndrome? Or that 7 in 10 girls feel they don’t measure up? And that, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, close to 80% of women have issues with self-confidence and self-advocacy?

Anyone else think those numbers are staggering? We certainly do. Especially when you consider the following:

• Girls’ brains generally mature two years earlier than boys. 
• The highest IQ ever recorded belonged to a woman: Marilyn vos Savant at an IQ of 228.
• Women earn more than 60% of all college degrees. 
• Many of the world's best inventions were made by women, including, but not limited to: computer algorithms and software, the circular saw, dishwasher, kevlar, central heating, chemotherapy, chocolate chip cookies, curling iron, electric refrigerator, GIF animation, Hydyne rocket fuel, laser cataract surgery, ice cream maker, Monopoly, Science Fiction, wireless transmission technology, and word processors. Check out a few more here.
• “The Ready-Now Leaders report from the Conference Board shows that organizations with at least 30% women in leadership roles are 12x more likely to be in the top 20% for financial performance.” (Read more staggering statistics from this article here.)
• According to a study done at the University of Cambridge, women are better empathizers than men. 
• 75% of caregivers in the United States are women. 
• Women are more likely to give to charity. 
• Women are more likely to volunteer their time. 
• And more!

Of course, we believe both men and women are great, but since this is a series on women feeling worthy, that’s where we’ll focus. 

Despite all these amazing things, women are still perpetually hard on themselves.

Joy D. Jones, The Primary General President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said, “Women wear many hats, but it is impossible, and unnecessary, to wear them all at once. The Spirit helps us determine which work to focus on today.”

There are lots of theories about why women are so hard on themselves, but one thing we know for sure is that this isn’t new to our generation. 

Even women in the old and new testaments were hard on themselves. 

Here are three examples of women from the scriptures who knew WELL how to be hard on themselves. 

Sarah (Old Testament)

1.) Clear back in Genesis we have Sarah, wife of Abraham, being hard on herself. In Genesis chapter 15-18, the Lord promises Abraham that he will have posterity that number in the stars. Sarah, having not borne children and believing herself unable, because of her age, gave her servant, Hagar, to marry and bear children for Abraham. 

Talk about feeling inadequate! 

It wasn’t until later, when the Lord reproved her for laughing at the idea that she could, at such an old age, have children, and then later, receiving the actual blessing of bearing a child, that she believed herself capable of receiving that blessing. 

The Woman with the Issue of Blood

2.) Another example of a woman feeling unworthy is the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5: 25-34 and Luke 8:43-48. 

What is an issue of blood exactly? A certain kind of bleeding, sometimes described as hemorrhaging. It was thought to be a consequence of uncleanliness or sin, though in Mark this woman’s issue was described as a plague. 

This poor woman had been suffering from this plague for 12 years and was more than likely called “unholy” and “unclean” because of it and there’s good reason to believe she was an outcast for it. Mark tells us that she “suffered many things of many physicians,” (5:26), but that they had not made her better, only worse. 

Can you imagine what that must have been like? Or rather, I think it’d be pretty impossible, considering all the conveniences of our day including doctors who have way better knowledge of what they’re doing, to be able to imagine any such thing. The pain, the isolation, the guilt and constant wondering what she’d done wrong to deserve such a fate—when in reality she’d done nothing wrong. 

Yet, she had faith, and that faith gave her just enough courage to say, “If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.” (Mark 5:28)

And we all know how that turned out. (Or if you don’t, you’ll want to read next week’s email.)

The Woman at the Well 

3.) And finally, we have the lovely story of the woman at the well in John 4:7-29. What’s her story? 

At mid-day she came to the well to get water and came upon Jesus there. He asked her for a drink, to which she replied “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me which am a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9)

Let’s unpack this before we move on. 

First, she came to well in midday. This was not common for the women of her time. They were accustomed to going to the wells together in the early hours of the morning for company of the other women and to avoid the midday heat, which would’ve been horrible. And, the well wasn’t in the city, it was quite a ways out of the city. Which meant she would’ve had to carry her water, which she would’ve had in a large vessel on her head, hip, or shoulder. Back then, a strong woman could likely bring up to 40-45 pounds of water that she would then need to carry back to town. And she may have had more than one trip!

But she chose to do this alone, and in the heat to avoid the other women. 

Second, when Jesus asked her for water, her response was a little snarky. Or at least that’s how I read it. At very least she was shocked that he would even speak to her, let alone ask for water from her. Why? Because she was a Samaritan and he was a Jew and the two groups didn’t get along. She expected him to avoid her, maybe even be cruel. Definitely not to talk to ask her for a drink. 

After this, Jesus began to preach to her and eventually asked her to bring her husband to him, to which she replied she had no husband. Jesus then told her that she’d had 5 husbands and the man she was currently living with was not one of them. 

And this came to the root of the problem. The woman had a bad reputation and was an outcast because of these things, which was why she went to the well alone. And because of her reputation, actual or perceived or both, she had very little confidence in herself. 

Yet, this is one of the most beautiful stories in the scriptures, if not the most beautiful, of a person discovering their worth in the eyes of the Lord and in themselves. (We'll talk more about this in our next email.)

So, as you can see, as women in this day, we are not unique in our worries about our worth. If anything, we are one in a long line of a history of women—but that doesn’t mean we always have to be this way. That we must always worry. 

Elder Jeffery R. Holland said, “I want you to be proud you are a woman. I want you to feel the reality of what that means, to know who you truly are. You are literally a spirit daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and an eternal destiny.”

We truly believe this, and because of that have decided to do an email series called the Divine Nature of Women to help dispel some of those worries. To help you know you’re not alone, and that someone out there knows how valuable and how worthy you are. 

Next time you’re out and about, look to the woman on your right then to the woman on your left and know that we’re all struggling in similar, even if not exact, ways. And be sure to pop in on next week’s email where we’ll delve deeper into the stories of the Woman with the Issue of Blood and the Woman at the Well in our email “God Comes to Women.”

Love, 

The Cedar Fort Family

P.S. Learn more about the worth of women in our women’s collection from Between Monsters to Mercy to Dear Divine Daughter to A Future Only God Can See for You, and more, here!

P.P.S Read the next article in the series, God Comes to Women, here. 

*And excuse me while I go read this email to multiple people before we publish it because I’m worried it’s not good enough. ;)