I remember the first time I met Victoria Dynasty James.

I was sitting at a Tuesday night church service with a dear friend, new to Nashville and eager for community, when a beautiful woman with a bright smile walked up to us and asked us for our names.

We chatted a bit about why I was in Nashville and what I did for work.

“You’re a nurse practitioner?”

I’m still not sure how she got that from news producer, but it’s a joke we tell everyone about the night we met. And how a few days later, someone asked if we were related, and we both jokingly said sisters.

A sister is what I quickly found in Victoria. Someone who is loving, encouraging, and dreams big not only for herself, but for the people God has surrounded her with.

With one conversation, you’ll notice the way she carries herself with grace, gentleness, and a meekness that almost seems natural, but it’s through her time with Christ that Victoria attributes to the person she’s become.

Like most of us, Victoria says she’s, “had seasons of being in the dark room and being developed by the Lord.”

But despite both the mountain tops of success and valleys that shaped she throughout her childhood, there were moments when she didn’t truly see all that she was capable of.

A pivotal moment that helped change Victoria’s view of her future and what it held was when a woman she knew from church prophesied over her and told her she was called to a platform of different avenues.

“Although I did big things in my youth, there was still so much untapped potential,” Victoria said. “I just didn’t see myself learning instruments and writing and I guess being influential in any way.”

That woman’s word came true the following year when Victoria was asked to be a part of Sadie Robertson’s Live Original brand. Victoria was reached out to over social media to write and create for the platform, along with a team of more than a dozen other ambassadors.

It became a catalyst to her passion for writing and seeing her gift expand.

“Nothing in the natural could equate to why they would ask me,” Victoria noted about the opportunity. “The only thing I had was the prophetic word that I received from God.”

As Christians, something that most, and even I myself, struggle with daily is tiptoeing the line between the growth in action and the growth in waiting, especially when you feel called to a certain mission, career, or season. Whether that means diving head first into the promise spoken over you, or believing it will fall into your lap.

But Victoria says it’s all about balance, and what God has for you, will come find you.

“You don’t have to jump through all of these hoops,” She added. “Obviously, there’s a fine line between striving and actually doing the work. When you’ve done all that you can do, you wait.”

Despite the accomplishments Victoria had throughout her teenage years and into early adulthood, it took a while for her to see her own potential within herself.

She says following trauma and the challenges of childhood, there were pivotal moments where she thought, “If I would have just believed in myself – that I was more than capable – where would I be?”

Victoria’s potential was something not only she noticed within herself, but the adults around her noticed as well.

That includes her agriculture teacher in high school, when something as simple as missing out on a leadership position in a club became a defining moment that would shape the way she viewed life.

“Deep down, I wanted to be president or vice president,” Victoria she told me as she recounted the moment she applied for a lower position, feeling like her classmates had more accolades and were a better fit for the bigger roles.

But her teacher thought differently, telling Victoria she would’ve given her any position she chose to apply for.

“That was a hard pill to swallow, but it was very eye opening, “Victoria said. “And I feel like that moment still affects me to this day. I’ve just become undignified in a way of like, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ God has truly put something on the inside of me and it’s my job to tap into it.”

If you take another look at the Victoria of today, not only will you notice the grace, gentleness, and meekness – you’ll notice her passion for style and expressing herself through the art of fashion.

It was at a discipleship school a few years back when the Lord unlocked a desire that had already found itself stitched into her heart.

“My collective was leather, so I basically learned how to make journals, bags, wallets, the whole shebang,” Victoria said. “The Lord was basically like, ‘Your dreams are still on my heart.’ And I said, ‘Oh, why aren’t they on mine?’ That’s when I fell back in love with fashion.”

Victoria started working with close friends, styling them for concerts and shoots, and reaching out to acquaintances to build her own portfolio.

She says the Lord surrounded her with people, opportunities, and experiences to help build her own brand.

“The Lord met me with what I had,” Victoria said. “I didn’t have to spiral and think, ‘I don’t have the means to be a stylist.’ The Lord has taught me along the way.”

She says style is less about clothes and more about knowing who you are. That’s where her media brand Victorian Avenue comes in.

Victoria wants it to go beyond styling and help people tap into their own potential.

“We want you to pause and ask yourself those hard questions,” She added about the brand, set to launch this summer. “We want to give you the space to figure it out and then give you the courage to actually be those things. I feel like I’m speaking to common experiences and for an industry yearning for a solution. Yearning to be seen and known.”

The mission of her brand is an overflow of who Victoria is as a person. A dreamer who believes in herself, in other people, and her identity through Christ.

For anyone struggling to find their own identity, Victoria put it simply: “Get obsessed with what the Lord says about you. He will always tell you things you need to work on, what He loves about you, what He cares about, what He wants you to see.”