"I'm in NO position to judge anybody. I wandered around blindly in life before coming to my own realization that God's ways are better...they just are."
- Diane Canada
THIS WAS A BEAUTIFUL MOMENT...
I snapped this picture on a beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina on my Lady Up America Tour last year as I heard the Lord whisper in my heart...
"Diane, you are no longer healing...you are now healed."
Tears started pouring down my face because it has been a long road to healing. Let me take you on a little tour to show you how this movement came to be...
I am so grateful to finally know absolute peace and walk in unshakable faith in Jesus. It's been a painful and winding path of adversities and losses, which I share openly in my book, Lady Up & Don't Quit, but God has also shown me tremendous favor in the midst of those hardships. Looking back, I see how He is using it all for His purposes.
I wouldn't trade my valleys for a thousand peaks!
The valley is where I learned the sound of His voice and the nature of His heart.
Ironically, as God was healing me, contributing to the healing of others has been the common theme in my ENTIRE body of work.
My ultimate purpose was to empower MOMS to help heal our country, so the enemy took his best shot to try and stop me by attacking me in my most vulnerable place...my relationship with my own son.
It took me years to find the courage to tell my story, for fear of what people would think, but I don't live in that fear anymore.
It is my strongest testimony to the healing power of God.
I invite you to read the book to help fill in the gaps, but in the deepest valley of my life, where I no longer had the ability to get up and keep moving, I took the hand of Jesus for the first time. From there, everything began to change!
What I'm about to share with you is all the favor of God. I could not have orchestrated any of this on my own. I'll focus mostly on the professional path leading up to Lady Up America.
In the custody fight of my life at 20 years old, and with no college degree, I was waiting tables and in dire need of a better-paying job. I applied boldly for a management position I was completely unqualified for with Dr. Michael Press.
He was tickled when I showed up for the cattle-call interview and told him to send everyone else home...that "I" was his new Office Manager because nobody would work harder than me.
 Dr. Press |
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I worked there for a year and then an agency recruited me for a much bigger practice. The favor of God went before me and I was miraculously hired to manage an advanced dental practice of 11 employees in the heart of Buckhead in Atlanta:
Dr. Ventress, Dr. Carroll, & Dr. Andrews. At 22 years old, I was the youngest on the team.
 Dr. George Andrews |
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I wish I could find pictures of all of the Doctors, but Dr. Andrews was the youngest and is still practicing today in Atlanta.
They were WAY ahead of their time, they had top Consultants come in every year just to spit-shine-and-polish us, and they taught me so much about the significance of building relationships within our team and with our clientele. It was an invaluable incubator for me to learn about how to properly operate a thriving business.
Somehow succeeding in this role for nearly 5 years, I was recruited by the female VP of the Consulting firm that was polishing our practice at that time.
She said to me, "Why aren't you working for me?"
I was flattered, but said, "I don't know how to be a Consultant."
She said, "I'll teach you."
So, with the full blessing of my Doctors, she took me under her wing and taught me how to become a Consultant; to heal companies in crisis.
While my day job was all unfolding, I was "discovered" one night while waiting tables. I was goofing off singing Karaoke with another waitress. One of my customers was a professional in the music industry.
He said, "You're green, but you've got something special".
He hand-walked me into the industry, groomed me for a professional music/songwriting career, and sent me on pilgrimages to Nashville to write with established Producers.
Another good friend of mind in the industry called an investor on my behalf without my knowledge. He convinced him to come and secretly scout me, which he did for several months where I was singing. I had no idea who he was, but we became good friends.