Hey friends. You're listening to the Go and Tell Girls podcast, and I'm your host, Jess Conlin.

In most of our episodes, we'll have a guest, a woman who

is running on mission right where she's at. We pray this podcast leaves you encouraged and spurred

on to go and tell the good news. Hey friends, you know those women who are so interesting or so creative or so talented that you can't help but be compelled to just pay attention to them, to watch what God is doing in and through them?

That's how I feel about our guest today, Ariel Astoria.

I have been a longtime fan of hers.

I've been so grateful to follow her as she follows God as she uses her words, as she uses her gifts, as she uses her art.

So I know you're going to be inspired and encouraged by this episode.

Listen in and enjoy this conversation with my friend, Ariel.

Thank you. and enjoy this conversation with my friend, Ariel. Friends, we have an incredible gift today in that we have Ariel Astoria with us today.

So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Yeah, of course. I'm very excited. I also feel like I've been patiently waiting for my turn to be graced with being able to talk to you.

Oh my gosh. You are crazy. We should have had you on here months and months and months ago.

I am a big R.E.L. fan. like just big, big, big fan.

I'm so grateful for the way the Lord's gifted you.

I'm so grateful for how you're using what you've got right now.

I know a lot about what you do, but will you tell everybody else about what you do, about some of the stuff you do?

Absolutely.

So I kind of narrowed it down that I am a poet, a speaker, and then a creative.

And the creative is a really long drop-down box of different things from like social media to modeling to sometimes acting and to basically whatever creative things people will pay me for is what that drop-down is.

So I originally started doing spoken word all throughout college

and then graduated in 2015 and have really been shaped into doing it as a profession. I kind of say

...