Female Heroes of Color: Arielle Estoria

Our #femaleheroesofcolor week continues with Arielle Estoria ! Arielle is a wildly gifted Spoken Word Artist, Author, Speaker, and Blogger. The heartbeat behind her work is a diligent pursuit of instilling and reminding ​people​ of their worth through words. She is faithfully and diligently using her gifts to pursue God’s kingdom & in our opinion, she’s killin’ it.

We got to have a little Q&A with her earlier today and if it’s possible, we fell in love with her even more. Have a look at her thoughtful answers:

1.) What does it mean to be brave?

That moment when you’re absolutely terrified, but you in look fear in the face and do it anyway. That’s bravery. When you decide that not doing whatever it is that scares you would be way worse than actually doing it. You know that moment when the Lioness in you roars a little louder? That’s bravery.

2.) Why is it important that we highlight heroes of color?

Because there’s a little black girl, asian girl, middle eastern girl and hundreds of other girls who wants to be able to look up and say “That could be me too.”

We want to give our daughters the opportunity to relate to women and leaders who are doing AMAZING things in this world and not so that they can feel inferior but so that they could think that they could accomplish that. Also why WOULDN’T we highlight heroes of color?!  The diversity in leadership is what makes it all so great—we can’t be led by all the same people because we’re not all the same person.

3.) Growing up, who was your hero and why?
My Mom—-and Adele.

My mom because well duh she’s my mother and I just think that every girl should have a strong female presence in their lives who urges them to dream bigger, to look past the girl they see in a mirror, to remind them of their identity in CHRIST but also know how to love you better than anyone else.

And Adele because she was a woman who believes in the power of her voice and the beauty that she has to offer in the world and didn’t let society tell her that she had to look differently–she embraced her curves and helped me to do the same. She also reminded me that it was okay to be a bleeding heart type feeler and that it wasn’t a weak thing but a strong thing.

4.) What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?

Let God have control over my pretty perfect plans and actually show up in my life. He changed the script a whole lot but it was much better than anything I could have written!