Mission:

The mission of iamborntoberadiant.com is to inspire readers everywhere to unapologetically embrace who God created them to be, and empower them to live a radiant life that is set apart.

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."
~Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)~

Why I Started This Site:

In my 2019 year-end reflection post on Instagram, I wrote: "I'm committing to sharing my story more. I used to hate sharing it, but my mission is to empower and if there's one thing I learned this decade it's how to leverage my story as an empowerment tool." This is me honoring that commitment.

Up until my junior year of college, I used to think my story was irrelevant and not worth telling. After all, I'm just like any other hardworking individual out there, or so I thought. I used to hate answering questions related to my story and my journey, but it took multiple conversations with my academic advisors and them emphasizing the significance of my story for me to realize how important it is to tell it through both speech and writing. Ever since then, I've shared my story whenever an opportunity presents itself. I started with writing, then moved on to speech. My goal is to encourage everyone to share their stories because they do matter.

In my senior year of college, a professor who interviewed me suggested that I start a blog as a platform to talk about my experience as a woman of color in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), in addition to publicly raising awareness and discussing issues of representation in STEM fields. I strive to inspire and empower students from marginalized demographics to pursue STEM education and careers, so I thought a blog was a great idea, but I wasn't actually planning to act on it because who cares what I have to say? (A lie I've since recovered from). Since then I have thought about blogging to discuss all sorts of topics, but I manage to talk myself out of it every single time. However, in the last few weeks leading up to the end of 2019, the pull to create a blog just kept nudging me repeatedly until I couldn't ignore it anymore. It's like God was telling me that my time was up, so I relented and started brainstorming mid-December.

My faith is a big part of my identity, so I told God that I would start the blog if He gave me a blog title, and He did. By the beginning of the new year, I had a new Instagram account, a new email address, a basic starter logo I created, a domain, and a one year web hosting plan. Unfortunately, old habits die hard, so in the span of a few hours I cancelled my hosting plan and domain, and got a full refund. Back to square zero. Now here I am again as a result of relentless nudges from God to start blogging, but this time I'm following through. It took a lot to get here, but there's no turning back now.

In a nutshell, I started this site because I want to share my story and empower others to do the same. All throughout my life, I never felt like I fit in anywhere, but I did not start to fully embrace my uniqueness until I was in college. After I graduated college, I began a journey I now call my "Becoming Radiant" journey that's all about radiating the light within me and maintaining a life of radiance in every aspect of life. My greatest desire is to radiate the Glory of God in everything I do and everywhere I go, so I'm learning to fully embrace and love every aspect of who God created me to be. That's what I desire for every single reader that comes across this site. With every single story, I aim to inspire readers everywhere to unapologetically embrace who God created them to be, and empower them to live a radiant life that is set apart. My vision for this site is to glorify God by telling my story, letting my light shine, and shining the light on other radiant people I come across because I don't want this project to just be all about me. This is bigger than me, so the range of topics I plan to write about is limitless. In other words, this site is an "everything but the kitchen sink" undertaking. I truly hope to inspire and empower the next generation to become and stay radiant because we are all born to be radiant.