DARE Woman,
You Have a Song!!!
My mentor shared a video with me few weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to shake it off.
It was a simple illustration. Two glasses — one from regular, and one crystal wine glass. Same basic materials. Same fire. Same heat and intensity.
But somewhere along the way, something was added to the crystal one.
Not to weaken it. Not as a flaw. But to make it more sensitive to the craftsman’s hand. More pliable. More precisely formed.
I sat with that image for a long time because I think so many of us have been carrying things we never signed up for.
You didn’t expect to be parenting a child with special needs. You didn’t expect to be doing this season without adequate support. You didn’t expect the doctor’s report that changed everything.
And if you’re honest, there have been moments when you wondered whether all of it made you less. Less whole. Less capable. Less than.
But what if it didn’t?
What if the things added to your life — the hard ones, the uninvited ones — didn’t weaken you at all? What if they made you more sensitive, more pliable, more precious in the hands of the One who is still shaping you?
Back to analysis, both glasses are beautiful. Let’s be clear about that. The ordinary drinking glass is not less than. Both vessels have value and purpose.
But the crystal glass — the one with things added to it, shaped with greater sensitivity — has something the other one doesn’t.
It has a song.
Run your finger along the rim of a crystal glass and it resonates. It responds to its environment in a way that ordinary glass simply cannot. It carries a sound — a tone, a frequency — that comes specifically from what was added to it and how it was formed.
You have a song in your life because of the things that have been added to your life that you never saw coming — but that God can bring glory to His name through.
That is not a small thing.
That is the testimony that no one else can carry. The depth of compassion no one else can offer. The worship that rises from a place that knows what it is to hurt and still choose praise.
In Genesis 29, we were reminded of something that connects beautifully to this image.
Leah spent years looking outward — measuring herself by whether she was seen, whether she was chosen, whether she was enough by someone else’s standard. And it kept her in a place of striving.
But Paul addresses this same trap in 2 Corinthians 10:12 — where he warns against the foolishness of measuring ourselves against each other. The false teachers in Corinth were doing exactly that, using one another as the standard, and Paul says plainly: this is unwise.
“We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves, they are not wise.”
— 2 Corinthians 10:12
The only measure that leads to peace is this: how is my life measuring up to what God wants for my life?
Not her life. Not the woman sitting two rows over whose story looks cleaner or easier or more put-together. But the life God is specifically, intentionally crafting in you.
That’s where Leah found her way to Judah — to praise. Not when her circumstances changed, but when she stopped comparing and turned her eyes upward.
This revelation got me thinking about the song I’ve been holding back.
Maybe you have too.
“He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.”
— Psalm 40:3
The resonance that comes from a life like yours — from the additions you didn’t choose, the fire you walked through, the places where you were shaped with a precision that only comes from suffering — that is not wasted.
God doesn’t waste it. And the world needs to hear it.
So this week, I’m asking myself — and I’m asking you — to stop muffling the song. Stop comparing your vessel to someone else’s. Stop wishing away the very things that gave you resonance.
You are not ordinary glass. You are crystal. You are crafted with intention. And you have a song that only you can sing.
Yours in DARE-ing,
Nkonye Odozi
