Notes From The City: An Abundant Life - A Powerful Woman With A Powerful Message

I met Joy of Be The Difference, LLC when I first started posting on Instagram and I had started writing the Abundant Life section of this blog. As I have written in a guest post on her blog before, I had seen a t-shirt she had posted on Instagram with the simple yet profound message "Prayer Works!" and I commented something along the lines of, "Yes it does!" Prayer does work, something that I know from experience, both having prayed for myself and other people and having other people pray for me, and I loved the fact that whoever this person was, they were sending out that message simply and powerfully, helping to connect people with a great and powerful truth. As I wrote in the guest blog post, Prayer Works is not just a nice thing to say – Prayer really does work, and by praying we become a part of a greater work in the world. The act of praying is an act of intercession – we are actively taking part in the situation we are praying about. Scripture tells us that when we don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit helps us (Romans 8:26). The seemingly simple act of praying, or of trying to pray, calls on the most powerful force in existence to help us pray and have an impact on the situation we are praying about. Prayer does not have to be done in any particular form. Just thinking about a person or a situation and asking for guidance or wisdom or the ability to do those things we may feel we cannot – to forgive, to love, to not be afraid, to find peace in a storm – that is a prayer. Instead of calling everyone we know to ask for advice, or suffering sleepless nights and anxiety – things I used to do before I was born again – we can pray, and be still, and in that stillness find the answer sometimes or sometimes just the next step, or sometimes just the ability to trust and wait and know that though things may be confusing or frightening or hitting every trigger we have, we can find peace and rest and the strength to let go and let God.

After I left my comment in enthusiastic agreement for that wonderful t-shirt Prayer Works, Joy contacted me through Instagram, and we arranged to meet on a beautiful fall day in Jersey City Heights at the lovely Riverview Park. She seemed very assured and very well put together, and I assumed that this was her only business, but when I began to get to know her more, I discovered that she has a regular day job and BTDLLC is just one of the many things she does to inspire, uplift and strengthen individual people and communities. As I have written before, Be The Difference Clothing, or BTDLLC, makes t-shirts and socks and onesies for the little ones that have inspirational and uplifting, encouraging sayings on them. I’d be attracted to the sayings all by themselves, but there is an artistry behind the creation of the clothing that goes much deeper than a happy quote. The designs are made to help us think and feel the impact of the words written on them, and to help encourage us to have the courage to believe that we can make a difference in our own lives, with others, and in the world.

Her designs are carefully made, with real people and real situations in mind, and each design is carefully printed in as high a quality as possible to insure the longevity and wearability of the products. She is always coming up with new ideas, and asking for suggestions from her wide spread fan base, encouraging people not only with her own ideas and designs but also encouraging others to speak their own words of power, wisdom and life.

Recently Joy told me that she was going to step into the spotlight a little bit - she is always so careful not to put herself first and foremost, but she had been encouraged to show the face behind her wonderful products, and she was looking for ways to do that a bit more. She's a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart, and when I had first met her I had wanted to photograph her more, but at that time she was a bit camera shy and I don't ever like to push people to do things they don't feel comfortable with though I know that from a marketing perspective, as long as people are as humble as Joy is, readers and viewers like the more personalized experience of getting to know the face behind a story. She's been posting a bit more about herself, on Instagram and through podcasts, and in addition to the guest post I had written for her blog, I had written a short post here on May 22, 2016, but now for the first time in this blog I'll present a few photos of Joy, the powerful and beautiful woman behind the powerful and beautiful BTDLLC.

Joy At Antique Bar & Bakery

www.AntiqueBarBakery.com

https://www.BeTheDifferenceLLC.com/