Season 6 Colossal Shifts: From Clubs to Calling

What happens when you take the same energy used to run nightclubs and promote events and redirect it towards serving a higher purpose? In this inspiring episode of Vision in the Valley, we recount a journey of transformation from the high-paced world of corporate success and entertainment to a life dedicated to glorifying God. Tune in to hear how the relentless "rah-rah" spirit that propelled multiple business ventures, including owning venues, leading an all-girl promotion team, and launching a magazine, found new meaning in spiritual fulfillment. Reflect on your own passions and consider how they might serve a greater cause.

Sharing your personal story, even the difficult parts, can be a powerful testament to God's work in your life. This episode underscores the importance of bearing witness to our pasts, despite the enemy's attempts to silence us with shame and regret. Hear a compelling narrative about overcoming personal struggles and uncertainties by focusing on Jesus, and how every misstep can be turned into a message of encouragement for others. No one is beyond God's use, and finding clarity in your purpose is a journey worth embarking on. Join us as we explore how every experience can be transformed to glorify the Lord and uplift those around us.

Now that's Rah-Rah reimagined!

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:03

Welcome back to Vision in the Valley. I am still ill, so please excuse the raspiness in my voice. I wanted to start off by giving a public service announcement. Today I got a little rah-rah in me, y'all. Actually I got a lot of rah-rah in me. Now I know that you all have heard the softer side of me, and for the most part that is me. That is true. I love the Lord and I'm always happy to share that.

Speaker 1 0:32

I mentioned in the last episode that when my assignment is complete, both in the natural and the spiritual sense, I want to be sure that I worked as hard for the Lord as I did for my own brand or the companies that I worked for. I want to be pleasing in God's eyes. I want to work with the same spirit of excellence in all that I do for him, and I know that I cannot be depleted, exhausted or spent. I was concerned about relaying my passion for the Lord or the spirit in which I work for him properly, because if this is not your space today, it may seem like it's too much, and I totally get that, because this wasn't the space that I always inhabited either. It was an evolution. I called it elevation in the last episode, because this rah-rah I speak of is that go hard, that let's get it mentality. It's who I am, it's who I've always been, and I've applied this to all aspects of my life, and this would unfortunately include my dry bones season, my corporate days, and even or I should say, especially now. I don't do anything, just a little bit. I have a natural desire to do it the best Now. I don't mean the best that's ever been done, I don't even worry about that, I just do it the best that I can do Now. I know that sounds good, but I'm telling you that it also applies to the worst part of me. So how do I say this? How do I say this in one episode?

Speaker 1 2:17

When I shifted from married life, I didn't really know my place in the world. I'd been a wife and a mother my entire adulthood, my entire adulthood. So that evolution was an uncomfortable stretch for me and almost everything seemed like it could be an option. I say that hoping that you realize I don't mean everything, everything, but I did find myself in relationships that I never expected to be in and I found myself in jobs that I never imagined for myself. So here's a story After I left the corporate arena. I was using the money I pulled from my 401k to live, which was already risky to begin with. But there was so much going on in my life during that time that all I can think of was just the retreat part of it.

Speaker 1 3:27

The short part of the story if I can make this short at all is that I had eventually met a guy that was a promoter, among other things, and I shared with him my event planning business, which I'd started in 1998. As a matter of fact, the year that my my caboose, alyssa, was born, he thought that I'd be good at the promoting thing, like it was just a natural segue. Now here is the moment where I wish I could just simply push play so that you could see, you know or hear all that happened. But I can't do that. There is so much to share in that space. But I do understand that everything happened the way it had to happen for me to get here. I'll just tell you that promoting wasn't enough for me and I was promoting at the larger clubs. Like how I even got into those spaces with no background in that thing, I don't know, but I was there and I realized very quickly that promoting was not enough. That was only a percentage of a thing, and the rah-rah in me was going to need all of it. So my mind had started to shift to owning my own venues and I not only own my own venues, I owned multiple venues. Then I formed an all-girl promotion team. I paid for photos, I launched a magazine to showcase them. I mean, you get my point right. I got a lot of rah-rah in me. I was even in the midst of taping a reality show about club slash bar life and the owners and the teams that supported them, and I was going to call it bar wars.

Speaker 1 5:28

Although I've been saved since I was 12, I was not waking up with my mindset on Jesus at this point. Now there are several things that I could speak to in this space, and I'm sure the Holy Spirit will direct me back to these, this space, when it's appropriate, if it's appropriate. But today I want to tell you that there's nothing wrong with having a little rah-rah, and I think I'm going to say that again. There's nothing wrong with having a little rah-rah, there's nothing wrong with having a lot of rah-rah. The trouble is where we use the rah-rah. As I began this transformation.

Speaker 1 6:09

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to work as hard for the Lord as I did for other things. See, I went into this working with the spirit of excellence for all of what I just mentioned to you, because that's how God formed me in my mother's womb. He put that rah-rah in me, but he intended it to be used for him. He broke it down to me one day out of the blue. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular and I got like a slide showing my head of how hard I went for that bar life, that club life.

Speaker 1 6:44

Like who forms their own promotion team? You've been in this business for two days and you got what's going on with that? Who launches magazines? Like who? Who did? I think I was launching a magazine. The people that I pulled these were people who most were undiscovered, if you will, and they they took off doing their own things after I had discovered them. Like who am I to discover? Anybody. I was a brand ambassador for several liquor companies, but now I'm an ambassador for God. Like, look at God, what is that all about? But you have to have some rah-rah for that to work.

Speaker 1 7:24

I heard one day in my head this is what you do with what I gave you. You see, I had began to understand that I had a little something special on my approach. My approach wasn't ordinary. That's why I stood out. I turned what should have been like a project or a passing thing into a career. That's what rah-rah does it goes deeper, it goes beyond, it's all in. The truth is that this is where my gifts are A few of them anyway. Creating something out of nothing, creating innovative solutions, going further than most would, with the same vision, engaging people and making them feel welcomed and appreciated. Those are gifts.

Speaker 1 8:10

But back then I was using my gifts for myself and for the world. I'd redeemed my gifts that God gave me unwisely. I wasn't being a good steward, my mind was not set on Jesus. I walked away from all of that almost nine years ago, never looking back, never regretting doing so, not even with the fact that I had no income. I literally had to wait eight months before I found employment. My dry bones were dry. My dry bone season was real dry. God stripped me down and I know that because of that extra rah-rah in me, I had to be stripped differently. My season would have to last longer. It'd have to be on another level. That's the only way I'd learn to seek God. The level of dryness, if you will, is what my rah-rah was going to respond to.

Speaker 1 9:13

Saying that God dealt with me during this season is such an understatement. He said I'm going to leave the rah-rah in you because I need it in you. I know who you are, I created you, I have plans for you and your rah-rah. So guess who's waking up with her mind set on Jesus? I remember hearing my grandmother sing this song all the time. But what does that mean? Right, I love the way Tracy Moore describes it. It's about staying aware of his presence and occupying our thoughts of him. This leaves no place for the devil, no place for anything that's not of him. She calls it losing God consciousness. I think that's particularly cute, because I often say that some folks go in and out of consciousness without even knowing it. So I completely understand the idea of losing God consciousness, and that's what I've done.

Speaker 1 10:19

This podcast is my gift to the Lord. He's been so good to me. This season alone gives you enough to know that he's not playing about me, and for that reason I'm not playing about him either. He's not playing about me and for that reason. I'm not playing about him either. So serving wouldn't be enough. My serve has to match my rah-rah. And when I'm tired I have to remind myself of the days that I applied all that good rah-rah, all that good energy, to the world and not to the savior of the world. I'm focused on him and I can't disconnect portions of my life. I'm all in. This is where the clothing and the jewelry line comes from. It's my commitment to be in alignment with the will of God, but it's personal from. It's my commitment to be in alignment with the will of God, but it's personal the will he has from my life alignment period. Nothing else will do.

Speaker 1 11:08

And I'll tell you something whenever I catch the clock with like 111 or 444 or any repetitive number, like that 222, whatever, I tell the Lord that I love him. I started out doing this because I didn't want to confuse myself with anything that was not of him, like the angel numbers or someone saying this represents. I didn't want that. I didn't want that. Instead, I wanted just to say I see you, lord. I am aware of your presence. I'd already started to tell the Lord I loved him when I woke up every day, but we know that hearing I love you more than one time a day is good, right, we know this. So one day I realized that I told him that I loved him nearly every hour of my workday. It made me smile.

Speaker 1 11:58

But I also began to think about how limited that was. Now, of course, I'm not saying that I limited my I love you's to only when the time displayed on the clock 1, 11, 4, 44, 2, 22, 12, 12. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that it had occurred to me that the highest count I could get to was 1212. And that made me, you know, a little sad. It's like wow. And then I heard that if I stay in God consciousness, there's always a time to say I love you. Now again, I don't mean that I'd ever only say it during those times, mean that I'd ever only say it during those times. But the max you understand what I'm saying that maxing at 12, 12 was was a little sad for me. But this just made me consider that 113 is really 13 13 in military time. Right? 214 is really 14 14 military time. So I've already expanded my window of I love you just because I was conscious. I was in God consciousness. You follow me with that part. When your mind is set on Jesus, there's always a reason to say I love you. And because he's sovereign, he knows all there is to know about you, including the things that you haven't claimed for yourself yet. He knows all about the rah-rah because he put it there he created you for his glory, not the world's. Now, who am I speaking to today?

Speaker 1 13:36

In this season, I was faced with a lot of things on my plate all at the same time and wanting to max each of those projects to the fullest. I had distractions challenging me about whether I should really be doing all of these things. In my breakthroughs, I was reminded that faith comes by hearing. So today I want to tell you I want you to hear this that my heart's desire wasn't always in this place. It wasn't always to serve the Lord, and certainly not at this capacity. I had to ask him to make my heart's desire match his will for my life. It didn't happen overnight, but I asked over and over again and then I watched the transformation happen day by day, moment by moment.

Speaker 1 14:28

I've been blessed to have feedback from you, and your messages regarding how my stories blessed you blesses me, and when I hear those messages like who are they responding to? It's just me. In my life I'd hear a voice saying if they only knew. But I knew that that was the enemy trying to silence what I was doing here. Right, I needed to share with you what has happened, what is happening, even the ugly parts, because knowing only enhances the testimony.

Speaker 1 15:07

The enemy will try to use your past to cripple you, to stagnate you, to quiet you. But there are a lot of us with similar journeys and it's good for us to hear that, especially when you see God moving through their lives. And anyone watching me from the outside, looking in, may think that this is where I was all the time. And I need to tell you no, if he uses me and I know that he is he can use anyone. That's facts. Please don't get discouraged about your past, or even if you've not yet understood your personal purpose yet, I promise that if you set your mind on Jesus, the times will be revealed to you. I know there's a lot of rah-rahs out there. Let's use it to glorify the Lord. Please share your thoughts with me and I can't wait to talk with you soon.