Before she was a clinical psychologist, preacher, or international speaker, Dr. Sarita Lyons was a college student searching for herself. Raised by Christian parents and proudly active in church as a child—Bible tracts in hand, leading recess Bible studies—Dr. Sarita once embodied what many saw as a model “Church Girl.” But as she tells it, “Being raised in church and knowing church things didn’t mean I really knew Jesus.”
That changed in college. Wanting to connect more deeply to her cultural identity as a black woman, Sarita found herself drawn into Yoruba spirituality and Kemetic teachings. “At first, I tried to blend it all together,” she writes in Church Girl.

“But eventually the truth got crowded out.” She was reading about African deities, building altars to ancestors, practicing divination. “There was a lot of community—but there was no Christ.”

The turning point came on a seemingly normal night. Her father called, as he often did, to pray over her. At that same moment, someone in her apartment loudly disrespected Jesus. Something broke. “I screamed, ‘Get out!’ and cleared everyone out of my apartment,” she recalls. “I wasn’t thinking or feeling. I was just moving—obeying. The Holy Spirit took over.”

She dismantled her altar. Tossed tarot cards, beads, candles, books—anything tied to deception. “I was sick. I ended up passed out on my bathroom floor,” she writes. But when she woke up, something had shifted. “I saw my old Bible peeking out from under my bed—the NKJV, tattered and dusty. I grabbed it. I didn’t know what to read, so I just flipped pages and asked God to lead me.”
She landed on Jeremiah 2: “I remember you, the kindness of your youth… when you went after Me in the wilderness.” It wrecked her. She wept, repented, and surrendered.

Dr. DeYonne Parker’s journey from hidden pain to a global calling — and the fearless yes that changed everything.

Dr. DeYonne Parker

The first time Dr. DeYonne “Dr. Dee” Parker stood on a stage to share her truth, the lights felt brighter than usual. She could hear the quiet hum of the crowd settling in, smell the faint sweetness of perfume drifting in the air, and feel the familiar flutter in her stomach, but this time it wasn’t stage fright. It was the weight of remembering how close she had come to never stepping into this moment at all.

“I almost said no,” she admits, with a smile that doesn’t hide the memory. Not because she lacked the ability or the faith, but because she wasn’t sure she deserved to be seen. It’s the kind of confession that draws you closer because somewhere in her hesitation you hear your own.

In the mirror that night, she made a vow: “I’ll go wherever You want me to go. I’ll do whatever You want me to do. Just let me know You like I’ve never known You before.”

“Our Identity Is Not Something We Find or Create—It’s a Bestowed Gift”

Dr. Sarita Lyons is clear: “Identity is not something you discover on a retreat or make up in a moment of affirmation. It’s something you receive. It’s bestowed by God.”

In both her writing and speaking, she teaches that the confusion many women—especially Black Christian women—experience about identity comes from trying to build a self from outside sources: performance, pain, and cultural labels. But identity, she says, begins with God’s voice, not the world’s applause. She urges women to do a spiritual audit:

“Write out everything you believe about yourself. Then ask, “Who told me this?” And more importantly, “Does God agree?”

“We confuse doing with being,” she explains. “We list our roles, our titles, our productivity—our fruit—and think that’s who we are. But we are not our fruit. We’re called to bear fruit, but we are children of God first. That’s who we are.”

Going back to the Garden of Eden, Dr. Lyons reminds us that the first woman ever created—Eve—was free. “We don’t talk about that enough,” she says. “She was free. Not wounded. Not shaped by oppression or patriarchy or trauma. She was the first woman to ever be born free. That is our spiritual birthright.”

And she’s not just referring to metaphor. She draws from Genesis and the Hebrew term Ezer, often translated as “helper,” but more accurately understood as a military-level support role—the kind of strength and partnership God uses to describe Himself.

“It’s not Hamburger Helper,” she jokes. “It’s not decorative. It means the mission cannot succeed unless the Ezer shows up. That’s what God says about us.”

But then she expands. “God doesn’t just call us helpers. He calls us influencers. Life-givers. Free. And in the New Testament, our identity increases—we are sons and daughters of God, living epistles, royal priesthood, the redeemed, the sent.”

Her point is clear: everything God said about women in the beginning was intentional and sacred. The culture may try to revise it—or distract from it—but God’s Word gives us a gospel vision for identity.

She warns against embracing cultural identities that contradict Scripture, even when well-meaning. “You can’t call yourself a goddess and also say Jesus is Lord. It’s incompatible,” she writes in Church Girl. “The world’s labels might be meant to uplift—but they should only ever serve as exclamation points, never as replacements for what God has already said.”

And she knows firsthand how disorienting it is to try to find yourself in cultural spaces that weren’t built with you in mind. “Black women have often had to translate Christian teaching for ourselves,” she says. “We’ve read books not written to us, for us, or about us. But the truth is—we are seen. We are known. We are fully loved and fully called.”

In Church Girl, she writes: “God made the Black woman. God died for you, redeemed you, and endowed you with power and purpose. God gave you an identity that only he could give, and you are called to show off the glory of Christ by showing up in life fully as a Black woman.”

That means stepping into identity isn’t just a personal win—it’s a divine assignment. “When we walk in the truth of who God says we are, it doesn’t just dignify us—it glorifies Him.”
“It’s Not About Figuring It Out—It’s About Obedience”

When asked what divine alignment looks like in this season, Dr. Lyons doesn’t offer formulas—she speaks of kairos, God’s divine timing, and providence, His quiet, intentional orchestration of ordinary events. “Sometimes you don’t even know it’s alignment until after it happens.”

For her, divine alignment is less about big signs and more about sensitivity. It’s about recognizing God’s hand in what feels like a coincidence—like meeting someone at a random event, or taking a job that unexpectedly becomes a mission field.

“The Book of Esther is a beautiful picture of providence,” she explains. “She was in a bad place, but in a good position. And that’s how God moves—through people, places, and moments that don’t always feel divine until the fruit shows up later.”

But even divine alignment comes with a cost. “Obedience still stretches me,” she says. “It’s different in this season. God’s ‘yes’ is weighty now in ways it wasn’t before.”

Her story begins in Omaha, Nebraska, in a home where faith was as constant as breath. Sunday services weren’t optional; they were woven into the rhythm of life. Yet as a teenager, one violent moment threatened to silence her forever. The assault didn’t just wound her body; it marked her spirit, layering her in shame and teaching her how to disappear in plain sight. “I carried it like a second skin,” she says quietly. “And I convinced myself that surviving was enough.”

Years later, when God began to call her into ministry, she didn’t run toward the light; she retreated further into the shadows. She built a respectable life, one that didn’t require her to risk her heart or her story. “I told God, ‘You’ve got the wrong woman.’ I didn’t feel qualified, and I didn’t want anyone looking too closely at me.” But the call persisted. Prophecies from strangers confirmed it. Doors opened when she wasn’t knocking. Eventually, she realized she wasn’t running from the work; she was running from herself.

“Alignment Sometimes Means Grief”

Divine alignment also reshapes relationships—some grow, some fall away. For Dr. Lyons, that’s part of the refinement process. It’s what happens when you begin to walk more closely with your purpose.
“As we heal and grow, some relationships no longer fit,” she says. “And that doesn’t mean they were bad. It just means they were for a different season.”

She’s had to learn how to grieve certain connections while blessing their role in her life. And it’s not easy. “Letting go with grace is hard,” she admits. “But I trust that when God realigns something, it’s never random. He’s never wasteful.”

“Rest Is Resistance”

In Church Girl, Dr. Lyons reframes rest not just as recovery—but as a form of spiritual rebellion against overwork, comparison, and hustle culture.
“There is an epidemic of Black women finding rest elusive.”

Rest isn’t just naps and vacations, though those matter. It’s a mindset shift. It’s about learning to see rest as sacred. “Jesus rested. He modeled it,” she writes. “We’re not meant to go non-stop. We need stillness to heal and hear God.” She describes scrolling through social media and feeling that pull of comparison. Instead of spiraling, she prays: God, thank you for my life. Then she adds this: “God, show me how you want me to rest. Help me notice the ways you’ve already made space for me to breathe. Help me stop watching everyone else’s life and start living mine.” Rest, for Dr. Lyons, is no longer optional.It’s part of her alignment. It’s how she resists the lie that worth is earned through exhaustion.
“God’s Secret Will Is Not for Us to Figure Out—It’s for Us to Obey”

Through her faith, scholarship, and transparency, Dr. Lyons reminds us that divine alignment isn’t about chasing clarity. It’s about pursuing Christ. Her story is not clean or tied up in a bow. There’s pain. There’s pruning. But there is also peace. “I’ve stopped asking for answers,” she says. “Now I ask for awareness. I ask to be in tune.”
And for all the church girls finding their way—those healing from wounds, unlearning performance, and rediscovering their God-given identity—Dr. Sarita Lyons offers a mirror and a map. She’s walked through fire and found divine alignment on the other side.

Dr Sarita Lyons:

“God doesn’t just call us helpers. He calls us influencers. Life-givers. Free.”

“Obedience still stretches me. God’s yes feels weightier in this season.”

“Sometimes we’re in bad places, but we’re in good positions for God to use us.”

“He prayed for me before I believed. He aligned me before I even asked.”

“I’ve stopped asking for answers,” she says. “Now I ask for awareness. I ask to be in tune.”

Her turning point wasn’t a flash of certainty; it was a quiet, stubborn choice to trust God’s voice over her own fear. That yes led her to China, not as a tourist, but on assignment. She traded the predictable for a culture where every street was an untranslatable story and every day was a new lesson in courage. “I went from knowing exactly how my days would unfold to living in constant discovery,” she recalls. That leap became her proof that courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision to move while fear still lingers in the room.

Today, Dr. Parker spends her days standing beside women on the edge of their next chapter, guiding them through her Signature Move Framework. She helps them name the thing they were created to do, sharpen it, and bring it into the world with authority. “Your signature move is the gift people know you for,” she says. “It’s the part of you that carries impact wherever you go.” Her workshops are both strategic and soul-shaping, pairing clear steps with breakthroughs that sink deep enough to shift how a woman sees herself.

Two scriptures steady her journey. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds her that her future is intentional, not accidental. Ephesians 3:20 is so alive in her heart that she sets an alarm for 3:20 p.m. daily, a sacred reminder that God can do “immeasurably more” than she could ever imagine. “When you know you’re anointed for your assignment,” she says, “you stop asking if you’re ready and start asking, ‘What’s my next obedient step?’”

Her forthcoming book, Your Signature Move: Master Your Mindset, Maximize Your Presence and Multiply Your Impact, is more than a how-to. It’s an invitation for readers to step fully into who they were designed to be. “When you move in your purpose, you give others permission to move in theirs,” she says. “Legacy is not just what you leave; it’s who you lift while you’re still here.” For those still lingering at the threshold of their calling, she offers one final challenge: “You are already equipped. You have the power, love, and sound mind you need. Say yes. The world is waiting for the version of you only God could create.”

www.DeYonneParker.com

August 2025: Dr. DeYonne Parker