Bass Mitchell, my preacher friend from West Virginia, tells about the damaged goods bin at the grocery store where he worked in his first job. He says: "I started out as a bag boy but soon was promoted - given my own aisle to stock. Trucks brought in hundreds of boxes of food every week and we had to unpack them and put the stock on the shelves. Almost every week, however, we would open a box and find that some of the cans or cartons had been damaged. Some of the cans, for example had lost their labels, had dents, were crushed, and sometimes so badly that some of the contents had come out.

"Well, we were told by the manager not to put these on the shelves because no one would buy them. So, we often would place them in a large basket in the front of the store. And on the basket was a large sign that read, "Damaged Goods. Cheap." But not very many people bought them. Most just ignored them. Often we ended up sending them back to the manufacturers.

Bass Mitchell adds, "It seems to me that a lot of people feel like this. Whatever the reason, things they've done, things life has done to them, things beyond their control, have made them feel like damaged goods...bent out of shape, crushed, of little value to themselves or anyone else."

Rev. Mitchell once saw a woman being interviewed on television. She was a single parent with two children and had been divorced several years. She was being asked what it was like being a single parent and if there was any romance in her life now. "I look at myself," she said, "as damaged goods." She did not think anyone could love her again. Her sense of worth was zero.

I wonder if the woman in our text for today felt that way about herself? Did she feel like she was damaged goods, valued by no one, ignored by many and perhaps looked down on by the rest?