7 Quick Takes vol. 20 Leah Darrow Edition -

Brandon Vogt is running a series on Support a Catholic Speaker Month this September. He posted a list of the top speakers voted on by his readers, and there are puh-lenty of great ones, including the 7QT queen herself. I was fortunate enough to be able to sign up to do a post on Leah Darrow. Want to know more about her. Let’s Quick Take on…

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First, you probably want to know a little about her, right?

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Leah started her career in the spotlight in season 3 of America’s Next Top Model. After being eliminated, she went on to pursue her career in modeling. She found herself working in NYC, doing photo shoots, and living her dream. Leah reports that one day during a photo shoot, she had a divine encounter with the Lord. He looked her her immodest clothing and hung His head. At that exact moment, Leah walked off the set. The photographer vowed that if she walked out, she would never work in the business again, to which she replied, “Do you promise?”

She called her father, a fervent prayer warrior, who picked her up from the city. He said she would leave on his terms, and his terms were that she needed to go to Confession first. She protested, and her father said his job was to bring her home. The Church is home. If she wanted to go anywhere else, she could call Southwest. Reluctantly, she went and returned home with her dad.

After a remarkable faith journey that still continues today, Leah is now a Catholic apologist and a public speaker on the topics of mercy, conversion, human dignity, modesty, and chastity.

Cool stuff.

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Then, you probably want to hear her speak. Am I right again? Are Men Attracted to Modesty?

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You liked that, didn’t you? Here is another talk: How does fashion send messages?

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I saw Leah speak back in May 2011 at the True Beauty Breakfast – a Mary’s Mantle fundraiser. She was poised, well-spoken, honest, and beautiful. Two things stuck out to me during her talk. The first was her thoughts on reality TV. She said that watching reality shows is watching another person’s brokenness. It is gawking at their sins. It is making a show out of their fallen nature. Now, when I am channel surfing and I am tempted to watch Teen Mom or Real Housewives, I just say to myself “brokenness” and move along. It changed the way I interact with media.

The second thing I remember from her speech was a song. She played “You Are More” by Tenth Avenue North. It is a beautiful reminder of self-forgiveness.

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Leah isn’t shy about her religious “crush” on Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. She courageously promotes his message, “When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.”

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If you want to hear Leah speak, but she isn’t going to be in your area, you have two options. You can book her or you can purchase one of her talks here. I am holding out for a book deal. I would love to see Leah’s biography made into a book – a biography with practical advice for today’s women.

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Finally, let’s talk about Leah’s devotion to Divine Mercy. At the talk I attended, she had Divine Mercy pamphlets available to anyone who was interested. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember her saying that the day she turned her face back towards Christ, the day she invited Him back into her life, was Divine Mercy Sunday. Appropriately, her message to women and men on chastity, modesty and forgiveness are encompassed by this great day in the Catholic Church.

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