When You Believe!

I want to introduce you to the woman show on the picture (right side). Her name is Diane and she is AMAZING!

I met Ms. Diana a few months back when her and her daughter began visiting our church in the city of Vallejo, CA. They would both quietly sit in the back and observe service. Over some time Ms. Diane made a decision to join the church and showed up for our Growth Track course where I got to know a little bit about her. As she attended Growth Track I learned that she was quiet woman that was full of wisdom, wit and a great sense of humor. Over this course of time we developed a connection, but Ms. Diane quieted back down.

A month or so after completing Growth Track I saw Ms. Diane come out of her shell a little more by serving on an event planning committee for a church event. It was when she served on this committee that I first noticed how creative Ms. Diane was. The event she was working on was our churches “Day At the Beach”. The committee had come up with the idea of each family decorating their beach spot for a contest. On the day of the event we walked around observing peoples set up, some were okay and some were very clever. Ms. Diane’s, hers was one of the clever ones! She had a full on set up in honor of Black Panther and her set up looked like it was directly from a scene in Wakanda. I was blown away and excited to see a little more of who Ms. Diane was.

The event came and went and slowly Ms. Diane settled back into her shell. That is until we launched our Pursuing Purpose Group Nights where I led attendees through my Purpose Journal, and facilitated conversation around who each woman was and how they were uniquely created by God to fulfill a specific Purpose. During one group activity Ms. Diane confessed in front of a group that she used to write poetry and loved music. I was excited upon hearing this and light heatedly mentioned that one day I would have to connect her with Pastor around writing a “Fresh Start” song which was something he desired. She laughed and said, “Sure”!

Three weeks later, I received a text from Ms. Diane stating that she was working on a song for our church. I responded “great!” and kind of brushed it off not sure if she was serious or not. A few days later she informed me that she wanted to present the completed song to Pastor for his birthday and wanted me to hear it first. The next day I received a text message with the link to the completed song and it blew me away.

Ms. Diana had not only written the lyrics to a song, but she composed it and sent a sample that she had recorded on her own, and laid it over a track. This wasn’t a novice attempt at a cute little song for kids. Ms. Diane had taken some of the quotes and sayings we often use at church and flawlessly crafted them into a catchy tune that had me in awe. So much so that I couldn’t wait until my husbands birthday to let him hear it, I needed him to hear it right away! So I immediately called him out to where I was, and as we listened to it we both agreed we needed to have producer use Ms. Diane’s song to create a formal piece for our church. And in that moment we both realized that what Ms. Diane had produced was exactly what we had been desiring, her gifts and talents were being used to bring a vision we had to life.

On my husbands birthday we celebrated by releasing “You Belong At Fresh Start”, a song that perfectly reflected who we are as a church, and with excitement our members shared the song and reached over one thousand song plays by the end of the day. 

I share this story to encourage someone who has been sitting on the talents and gifts that God has provided you. Ms. Diane had a talent that had been hidden away and wasn’t discovered until a group of women got together to discuss Purpose and the power of using what God has given you. Ms. Diane would not have attempted to write the song if she would not have attended Group Nights and recognized the Power of what she possessed within her. She needed to be among women who believed in her and who desired to help her believe in herself.

It is so very important for me to help you to understand that every good and perfect gift and talent was given to you to be used to impact the world. If you never believe in them or say yes to the task that you have been given, the people you are called to impact will never have the chance got see the fullness of who God has created you to be. We finally got to see Ms. Diane for who she is, and we are better because of it.

Today my desire for you is that you make a decision to release your gifts and to help others be better because of it. It’s time to believe that you have a Purpose and that you were created to make an impact!

Check out more from Lady V by listening to her Podcast here: https://anchor.fm/vanika-lewis