Last week we talked about 3 disempowering life and business beliefs
Remember that, sis?
As we stand at the beginning of a new year, I think it’s important that we discuss how to make it a success
If you’re anything like me, you’ve entered this year with a set of goals and things that you would like to achieve
Here are 4 lessons that we can learn from the widow in 2nd Kings 4:1-7 about how we can do that:
Not only does girls’ socialisation impact their ability to promote themselves and be visible, it can have negative repercussions for them when they do
For example according to The Harvard Business Review article, "Nice Girls Don’t Ask”:
“Women who assertively pursue their own ambitions and promote their own interests may be labelled as bitchy or pushy”
This means that “They frequently see their work devalued and find themselves ostracised or excluded…”
“More typically [these responses] are a product of society’s ingrained expectations about how women should act”
Meaning that women can be impacted by societal expectations and gender norms:
Internally (in terms of what they are taught to believe that they can be, do or have and therefore go towards)
Externally (in terms of what other people believe that they can be, do or have and are therefore give them access to)
The answer?
Last week we discussed how legalistic religious beliefs within the church can stop women from walking in their purpose and fully showing up
Click here if you missed that, sis
This is important because it plays into culture
(which is the behaviours and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic or age group)
especially in terms of how girls are socialised which, in turn, has knock-on effects on our ability to show up, be visible and therefore make impact as women
For, as one of my favourite authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche said:
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller, we say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much.’ ‘You should aim to be successful, but not too successful…’”
which is why, according to research, women feel less at ease with promoting themselves than men- which in turn means that they're less likely to do it.
However…
Mahlah and her 4 sisters (Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah) teach us that the best way to overcome this is to:
In August 2017 I wrote an article called “Lessons from 5 Rebel Girls of the Bible”
Which you can access here, sis
Among those that got an honourable mention were Mahlah and her 4 sisters- Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah
To summarise Numbers 27:1-11, they were the daughters of Zelophehad and when he died they advocated for themselves regarding their inheritance
by standing
“before Moses, before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders and all the congregation, by the doorway of the tabernacle of meeting, saying: 'Our father died in the wilderness...and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father’s brothers'"
Causing God to instruct Moses to give it to them
Like it literally says that, when Moses brought their case before the Lord, He spoke to him saying:
“The daughters of Zelophehad speak what is right; you shall surely give them a possession of inheritance among their father’s brothers, and cause the inheritance of their father to pass to them."
Which shows that God is an advocate of women's rights, equality and leadership- despite what we may have traditionally been taught
Within my Facebook group, Women of Influence, we have weekly expert interviews
We also discuss all things netowrking and PR here.
One of my favourite ways to end the interviews is by asking guests who their favourite woman of the Bible is and why
And whilst I’ve had a variety of facinating answers and testimonies…
Esther, without a doubt, takes the crown for the one that gets named the most
The scripute that’s most synonymous with her? “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Found in Esther 4:14
A rallying cry that came from her uncle, Mordecai, to encourage Esther to use her power, privelage and position in service of her people
A word that not only confronted Esther with her significance and purpose but confronts us with our own because…
It also let’s us know that:
James 1:23-24 says that the word of God is like a mirror
Because “if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was…”
Walking in purpose, especially if it involves entrepeneurship, is something that also holds a mirror up and reveals what’s on the inside of us
This is something that we see in the life of Esther
One of the many things that fascinates me about Zipporah, as told in Numbers 12, is that she was a foreshadow of what was to come
How?
Although she was not Hebrew by birth, her marriage to Moses grafted her in to their society and heritage (the blessing of Abraham) in the same way that Jesus’ death, resurrection and our faith in it has done for us
(just as Romans 11 explains in more detail).
In other words, Zipporah was a trailblazer
which is “a person who is a pioneer in any field or endeavour”
Because she blazed the trail that we, as modern women, would need to have fellowship with God.
Zipporah’s pioneer status also teaches us a valuable lesson about what it takes to be the change you want to see in the world and take a stand, as we’ve been talking about in the last few weeks i.e.
In my most recent blog post I talked about the importance of taking a stand with your messaging, even if it’s polarising
You can read that here if you missed it, sis
The truth is, though, that sometimes your presence can be polarising not just because of what you say- but who you are
Don’t believe me?
Just look at Zipporah
Number’s 12:1 is very explicit about the fact that “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married…”. In other words-
They disliked her, not because of the content of her character, but because she was a minority
The worst part?
