foreign to therapy and theology we are wrapping up a six-part series we’ve already done five episodes and we’ve talked about some really challenging issues we’ve really covered these conversations that need to be had but maybe people shy away from having them and most of the conversations are issues that women are facing I’m here with Dr Joel mudumale welcome and licensed professional counselor Jim Cress at therapy and theology we often like to say Joel brings the theology Jim brings the therapy and I bring the

issues and we’re grateful for them and experiential wisdom today I want to turn our conversation a little bit we’ve covered a lot of hard things but today I want to say what might be possible and I love this question because we want to make sure that the hardships that come at us don’t reside in us to the point that they become impossible hurdles in front of us that either we feel like we cannot get over or the difficulty of getting over it just seems to be too much for us so I want to give some inspiration through women that

had to overcome a lot and what we might have missed out on had they not done the good and hard work of overcoming the hurdles in front of them I think it’s important to elevate the awareness of what these women did because it’s easy for us to look at the success of other people especially people who did major things in history I think it’s so easy to look at their success but underestimate the hurdles of what it took to get to the place that you know their epic moment that we read about or hear about with these women and

I think it’s also important to address some of these women we haven’t heard about even though they did epic things that are affecting our lives today so Joel I’m going to look at you first um and you can pick some of the women that in our pre-conversations before recording you had a lot of women that you really felt like it was important to put a spotlight on and maybe people have not heard of them I want to do a woman that people have heard of and it’s Martha from the Bible and I think most of the time when we hear Mary and Martha

I’m just going to pose it to you guys what do you think about when I say the Martha piece Martha you need to chill yeah I think of uh Martha who uh stayed back to do all the cleaning and the you know while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and that’s not what I really think that’s just why I I globalized it to go it reminds us that man you need to chill out that’s what Jesus is saying yeah there may be more well I think a lot about just the way that people sometimes will say are you being a Mary or are you being no Martha and so she’s gotten very

categorized in the one picture or the one moment in scripture where Jesus says Mary has chosen the better thing you know um but I want to shed a spotlight on the fact that Martha though she had her struggles and issues just like we’d all do those same struggles and issues were still present when Jesus chose her to be the one who he gave I think it’s one of his most profound statements to in the Book of John there are seven I am statements that are recorded that Jesus is quoted to have said and I think the most profound I am statement

is the one he spoke to Martha first and I would like to pose that it was possibly the hardship that actually became what equipped Martha to be the carrier of this profound I am statement so just let that sit on you for a second because maybe the hardships that you are facing instead of calling them hurdles maybe we can say this hardship is actually the thing that will equip me to and maybe even clue me in to one of the most profound things that I I ever do in my lifetime and so let me give you Martha’s I am statement Jesus reveals to