The cutest quirkiest glasses and random fun colors mixed together, creating the coolest outfits, who is this lady? Why of course, you must be asking about Diana Martin, an eclectic artist, Jesus lover and kindhearted servant.
Sometimes you will see her behind a camera, representing Christ through her little up and coming business, Spark Photography. She will capture the perspectives you may have missed, the laugh of a volunteer, the beauty of a meal ready to serve, or the beautiful woman lost in the joy of a hula hoop. She has graciously donated her gifts as a photographer to capture events such as our Brazilian Luau, service days and our recent Djembe Drum Circle. God allows her to “catch” the life we want to remember, the joy in the midst of life’s unbelievable hard. Diana has lost a parent, she gets hard, but her gift is capturing life, simple pleasures, moments we should remember and the minutes we feel fully alive despite the obstacles still waiting for us. She’s got eyes that see, Jesus eyes, that delight in the butterfly fluttering, the child’s face covered in chocolate and the awkwardly precious energy of the teenage girl holding a chicken for the first time.
Her nervous laugh at the meals she cooked to freeze for a family in need is so cute as she explains every reason why it may not taste good, but her generous heart tried anyway. Love is shaked and baked into all the dishes she made, probably the best meals we gave away that month.
What a treasure Diana is to our community, we are better because she showed up. She’s the one writing articles for the flip side from feminine care to the most economical place to buy groceries. She’s putting care into her writing while teaching us to care for our bodies through health and nutrition.
Maybe she has not yet talked to you, but she’s committed to you. Her actions demonstrate her desire to invest in community, to contribute from her gifts and abilities, and to practice saying yes when her introverted self might easier say no. She is teaching us the intricate value of hard yes’s. Her life reminds us of the importance of doing what we say we will do, even when it yanks us right out of our comfort zones and stretches us to the core of who we are. We need her perspective. We need to learn to see the little things that really are the big things. We need the Jesus that’s seeping out of her sweet self. We need to notice her lack of confidence, to experience the amazement of surrender and obedience.
She’s got more than her toes in the water. Diana, in only ways that she can, has squished herself into a graceful canon ball and allowed the Lord to hurl her into the deep, creating beautiful ripples for Jesus. God is giving her the ideas that she’s choosing to implement, like the time she took a bunch of mini fall sessions to give the money to Grace Klein Community or the time she came to serve at the office because she could, and helping with preparations for the upcoming Swaziland mission trip. Every way she gives isn’t always comfortable, but is it ever for any of us?! Her dependency is Jesus. As she is teaching us, when we expose the inadequacies of who we are, the sufficiency of Jesus is what the world sees.