“Without a vision the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18

     With our country now at war, it would have seemed fitting for me to pick up the platform I had as Mrs. Colorado 5 years ago, for I had worked with our American veterans. But my convictions of a platform is not choosing one that is most fitting to bring glory to me, but one most fitting to bring healing to others. It didn’t take long to see where I should place my focus…

     This past Memorial Day, I helped set up a surprise for the husband of a client who wanted me to personally deliver his military honoring portrait I just drew of him, but also show up dressed as Mrs. Colorado. He was turning 75, an American veteran who lived out most of his military career in Colorado –it was perfect! Beyond the smiles, tears, and flash of newspaper cameras, what made the deepest impression on me were 2 pre-teen girls who happened to be there at the post office where this took place. They came running back in the building with a pen and paper, humbly asking me in giddy glee for my autograph. I had experienced this often before in Colorado, but now I was the mother of girls their age, my focus is now different. I left there knowing what I needed to do with this new title. Those girls didn’t know me from Eve – I just happened to be in a gown wearing a sash –and they were as open as nested baby birds waiting on the morning’s first worm. I may not look my age, they may not believe I am like their mother, but I could reach them like a mother – and they would listen...

    The one area in our country that gives me the greatest concern is our youth. With the lack of necessary father figures, the bombardment of the thematic media messages, abuses that come from that, the emergence of problems seems almost epidemic. I started with the idea of “Powerful Purity” – starting a wave of popularity among the youth (especially the girls) to see their value far beyond the modern images they think they are suppose to be molded to, and help them see real power, success and happiness, is available to a person who protects and takes pride in purity. Purity is not just limited to sex. Purity is a higher standard and expectation in all areas that destroys obstacles which stumble young lives. Could I successfully deliver a powerful but unpopular message? But then I woke up one morning with the words “powerful purpose” ringing through my head and I gradually saw the full picture: Purpose is the root from which will spring purity and all other ingredients any person (girl or guy) needs to soar to success. It’s like telling a 2nd or 3rd string athlete, “You need to eat healthy to perform well”. But then that indifferent athlete gets invited to the Olympics. Now they have their own huge purpose to have a passion to be healthy – or they lose. Yes, purpose is the key. It can save lives - it saved mine.

    There is no need to expound here, but someday maybe I will write an autobiography of the many shocking challenges and tragedies in my life, by God’s grace, I was able to overcome. Some were birthed from victimization and some from my own bad choices. But eventually, it was the revelation of a “purpose” that gave me the power to believe and achieve what God has designed. Now more than ever, with subconscious desensitizing to the value of human life, and the gradual ripping away of belief in a Creator, we have created a silent cry for genuine purpose, an unconscious starvation for the validation of ourselves as individuals. No one will suffer more from this famine than our youth. We see the manifestations of it creeping in all around us.

     My mission is to build up our youth’s solid perspective on their immense value, their perfect potential, and their personal “powerful purpose” – the need this world has for them and what they were born to be. To have this, produces character and drives away any desire for careless choices that lead to the pitfalls of destruction. It guides us through struggles making us see being a victim is only a choice – we were made to be victors. I am implementing this “powerful purpose” platform into the 3 areas of involvement featured on the front page – meeting kids where they are at. For some this is prevention, for others it is a life line out of the pitfalls they’ve already fallen into. I am fueled with the fire of my own “powerful purpose” now – to light that fire of purpose in the next generation who will impact the world!

Joshua Generation: Some of "Victoria's kids" finding powerful purpose through the arts

Victoria with kids from one of the Underground meetings at her church, Steele Creek Church of Charlotte

     I may not be able to speak as plainly in some public settings to the full measure I feel is necessary in regards to this subject. But my beliefs I can state here for it is my forum! 

     “Powerful purpose” just doesn’t pack the fullest punch without going beyond all boundaries into the realm where there is no limits and the full magnitude of anything is possible. Read on if you wish…

     There is a #1 best seller I have found so much truth in that it has become the basis of my life. It has actually been the #1 best-seller beyond any other book in history. It’s called the Bible. Most of the prophecies it contains have come true verbatim, and those that haven’t yet are quickly unfolding. Why would I not believe something so accurate, so miraculously protected over the ages and known to be the “Word of God” Himself? Would not the Creator know more than the created? It seems obvious we are not just a biological happening here on earth for a brief time before we fade into nothingness. What a miserable reality to try and live in! The Bible makes it clear that each of us and our purpose were planned even before our conception. We will not fade into nothingness – our bodies may die, but that is only just the beginning. What we do here on earth is the dress rehearsal for eternity. It counts. It also matters what we actually leave behind. I love the way Maximus (from my favorite movie, Gladiator) empowers his men before going into battle, stating, "What we do here today will echo into eternity."

     I used to think it was rather fake and unintelligent to believe in “destiny”- as much as I hoped for that romantic thinking to be real. Now I can look at it logically. In the history book of the Bible, every person and every event prophesied, once they were given birth, it was “destiny”. Destiny is simply the manifestation of something that is supposed to happen. If we were planned and suppose to happen, as it is pointed out in God’s word, we each really do have a destiny. We are here on purpose so we have a purpose. The purpose planned is much greater than we can conceive, too, that’s why God reveals it in minor steps – we would never believe it if we were told! The people written about in the Bible, were just ordinary (and even unlikely!) people who put their reliance on God and not themselves which caused them to make choices and acts of courage that chartered history, changed nations, and created lineages of destiny. We too, have to rely on the Master in order to be made into the masterpiece He has planned. He has the blue print, we hold the hammer and nails. We can “do our own thing” through life- throwing a board up here, shooting a nail over there- and we end up with a life that’s a dangerous tree house. Or we can surrender to the Master planner who has the blue print already drawn up and, with His loving guidance and supernatural power, present a mighty mansion to the world that will be a safe haven, not only for us, but the many who will follow us.

     How do we know our “powerful purpose”? I think I made the first step clear : we need to have an intimate relationship with the One who put us here. The One who purposed us knows His purpose for us. Once you have that, you will soon come to realize the secret of life: we were not created to glorify ourselves, but to glorify the One who created us. That is why so many people are empty and miserable when they have gained all riches and all fame. They missed it. So then, how do we glorify God? By accomplishing his will – and His will is to reach His world with His power and love. He does that through us! From Moses to Martin Luther King, all the great people who made a difference, (and remain remembered!) were those who were not focused on themselves, but the “purpose” they were called to for others. 

     Hollywood stars have got nothing on you – they rapidly fade, and their “shine” is meaningless when it’s gone…..Be beacons of light for the world who needs your destiny, and God will see that the beacon keeps shining long after your “dress rehearsal” is over.

Join the journey of finding “Powerful Purpose”- and GO SHINE! 

With the oldest veteran in Colorado at a Memorial Day event. Ninety-nine years old, having served in WW1, WW2 and the Korean war, Victoria gathered more than a kiss from him, but many inspiring "nuggets of wisdom" about life.