We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Natasha Colas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Natasha below.

Natasha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

One thing my parents did right was yo serve others and do so with humor. So naturally acts of service has become a major part of what makes me, me. I love knowing that I was able to help someone, particularly in situations where they seem stuck. And of course, if you’re hanging around me, you can rest assure that there will be many moments of comic relief. I, like my mother, am not afraid to be the brunt of joke if it means that it’ll help lighten the mood for someone else. Sadly, my biological mother is no longer living, however some of the fondest memories of her surround the laughter that encompassed the relationship between her and my dad. They were always laughing and joking with each other. I’ve found value in that and so my best to live each day surrounded by joy and laughter even if I have to be the one to ignite it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Just before the inception of Chapter 7 Ministries, the founder Tasha Renee had one crazy idea…how glorious would it be if every woman she knew operated in the full potential of their gifting? Through her own walk in life, she realized that too often that is not the case, and that there are so many women placed in situations or environments that have caused them to hide their gifts; due to lack of encouragement, unbelief, or their own insecurities.

Then she came upon a Bible Study by Priscilla Shirer that she led with her church’s small group called Gideon, and it was in this study that Chapter 7 Ministries was born. In the study, Gideon, like several others in scripture, finds his name being changed to better represent who he was. However, unlike others, like Abram who had his named changed to Abraham by God, Gideon had his name changed by the people surrounding him. He went from being called Gideon in Judges 6, to Jerubbaal, meaning contender of Baal (a false God that was worshiped at that time) in Chapter 7. This is one example where having the right people around, helped change the trajectory of a person’s life, as Gideon goes from a feeble man in hiding, to a mighty warrior conquering nations.

During this study, Tasha found herself surrounded by women, who like the people surrounding Gideon, helped her to change her name to the one that God always intended for her. Rather than seeing her as not good enough, or less than, these women told her over and over again that she was good enough and that God would help her do great things, until she finally believed it. Having experienced this, Tasha wanted a space where every woman entering would be encouraged by others, to operate fully in their gifting and successfully created this space with events like Arise! Gatherings.

That’s when Chapter 7 was born. Chapter 7 is a sisterhood of women with a similar vision of encouraging and uplifting other women. This is done by events like Arise! Women’s Gathering, which is a retreat where small groups intentionally take time away to encounter the Holy Spirit. With the increased success of these retreats, the ministry has since sprouted a sister ministry called Arise International Ministries (AIM). AIM takes all that happens at these Gatherings and magnifies it’s reach by creating retreats for men, young adults, and families, which previously only catered to women.

Have you ever had to pivot?

From a very young age, I was destined to be a physician, or at least I thought I was. It was a burning desire in me as a result of individuals like my parents and parents friends, planting the idea in me. Although their intentions were good, it had me chasing a dream that was partially correct for the majority of my early years. So much so, that I ended up racking up a tremendous amount of lost time and debt returning to school and entering programs to help me do well enough on the entrance enough to get accepted. However, after taking said exam three times with no significant increase, I had to take a step back to reevaluate my desires and discover my true destiny.

Going back to what I mentioned above, what others instilled in me was partially true because it accommodated only a part of my strengths. Like many physicians, I was smart, received great grades, and had a big heart to help others get better. However, unlike many physicians, that desire to help was not as much from a medical standpoint, but rather a spiritual one. In other words, rather than just cure the physical ailment, I desired to correct the spiritual and mental breakdowns that are often connected to physical. My desire has always been to be apart of the thing that cures the “whole” person and not just one aspect of them, and I’ve found that, that truly only happens with Jesus.

So after years and years of striving to attain a goal that had been set for me, at the age of 34 I finally asked God to reset that goal for me. It was a difficult thing to do, but once I did I felt a sense of peace like never before. I finally felt like I stopped chasing something that seemed attainable at times, but kept slipping through my fingers. Once I let go of all of the plans I had for my life and allowed God to make the plans for me, people around me started speaking things over me that helped me to align with His plan for me, which is what I’m doing right now. Counseling people through difficult situations, elevating their gifts and talents, helping them connect their current walks to their destiny, and creating spaces where they can encounter God in such a tangible way that their entire self, mind, body, and soul, are forever changed.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One lesson I had to learn was to stop belittling myself and my talents. In an effort to be as humble as possible, along with issues with my own self worth, I’d often enter a space with the attitude that I am “good” and my services are “good,” but I am not as good as “them,” which ultimately meant that I was not good enough. This often caused me to give a lower value to what I was doing and what I was capable of, than what it and I was worth. What I’ve found is that once someone has this view of you, it’s really hard to get out of that space. How I like to say it is, once they know you as a caterpillar, it’s difficult for them to see when you’ve become the butterfly, and so you end up having to fight harder to blossom into the elevated you.

So, it’s better to come in with adequate self-confidence rather than the opposite. And I say adequate, because being overly confident can be detrimental too. We should continually live in the realm of, I am enough, but not too good to be more and learn more.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.letsarise.org www.chapter7ministries.org
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