Living in Light | Love. Light. Liberty

Bobbi Kumari is an author, speaker, teacher, podcaster and founder of Living in Light.

I started Living in Light in 2010 after what felt like an endless period of creative paralysis. I had been super creative and mad about fashion as a kid, and when I was granted a place at the London College of Fashion at the sweet age of 16, a career in fashion swiftly beckoned. But instead, what followed was twelve years of debauched living as I embarked on a destructive life of hedonism and recklessness - sacrificing every dream and passion I had ever had for temporary gratification and often sabotaging the creative opportunities that did come my way. To be honest, I am SO grateful that I even made it out of that season alive and I am baffled that I managed to somehow scrape through with a degree in fashion management whilst being daily inebriated and totally disengaged.

At the age of 28 I was miraculously thrown a lifeline by Jesus. He supernaturally saved me from myself and from all my destructive living. He set me free and took the corpse that was my heart - and made it fully alive. He gave me a reason to wake up each morning and as I prayed to Him to show me what to do with my life, He whispered into my ear that I should become a teacher. And so I did. I taught fashion to the most amazing teenagers over the next eight years and at the same time I learnt SO MUCH that I had been far too messed up to learn in my past. Because all the while Jesus was educating me, shaping me, moulding me and showing me who He had created me to be. And as I helped the kids in my care, tap into their divine creativity, a yearning within my inners to create like I once had before the drink and drugs, once again began to revive. Memories of all the amazing clothes, artwork, jewellery and anything else I had spent endless hours as a kid making, before the distractions and addictions stole away my desire to create - and with it my ambition for life - began to flood my soul and I would ache on the inside. If only I could start creating again I would think to myself. But I simply didn’t know how to. 

And even though I had untold resources at my fingertips and I was surrounded by so much creativity as a fashion teacher - yet I just didn’t know where or how to start making anything. I had such a creative block and it felt like it was the biggest mountain to climb and I did not know how to even take the first step. Eventually, after several years of imposter syndrome, confusion, insecurity and comparison overload messing with my head and my heart, I felt God tell me to just trust Him, to step out in faith and start with what was in my hands. And so I did. All that was in my hands was a classroom that I could work in, a small collection of fabric and an amazing pant design that my bestie Bianca had worn and allowed me to replicate a version of. And so ladened with those few bits, I made my first four pairs of Bianca Pants, made a few more pieces not too long after, shot my first fashion shoot, set up a website and then suddenly…Living in Light was born. 

But I am not gonna lie…it was a slow start. And it was a deflating start, because nothing much came out of it for the first six months. But not too long after God told me to resign from my job as a teacher and to simply live a life of creating. And so that’s what I did. I had no idea how God was going to provide for me but knowing that He would, I started creating every day and just flowed with Him as best as I knew how. And as I grew in this crazy walk of faith I also grew in my understanding of what was on heaven’s heart when Living in Light was established in my little world. 

And over the years the vision for this brand has grown. Firstly, Living in Light is an extension of me. Of my testimony. Of my victories and of my failures. It’s my battle scars and my spoils. But more than that it’s His story. God’s story. It tells of God’s incredible love and grace and His divine capacity to take someone who was a write off…utterly drenched in darkness, and to take their failures, flaws and frailties as well as their gifts, talents and passions and to shine His beautiful light through all the cracks and brokenness and somehow light up the world around them.

And as my own journey in God has developed so has the heart behind Living in Light - to encompass so many different aspects, all working together in a multi faceted anointing and gifting mix that blows my mind. The brand has a strap line which is love, light and liberty but the vision of the brand actually lies in the four i’s that are found in the words living in light. The four I’s represent a light, a torch or flame and signify a place of triumph that I have authority and victory in because of my own story of liberation and so as a result I am able to help others in each of these areas. The four I’s are Intimacy, Image. Identity and Intercession.

Intimacy: As someone who spent most of her life seeking love in all the wrong places, who then discovered true intimacy in Jesus, I have an authority and divine anointing to be able to draw people into an intimate relationship with God and to pursue true intimacy in their relationships. This is where the Sacred Sexuality stuff comes in. It’s my heart to see a world rewire their desire towards true intimacy. This is also what leads me to share the love of God everywhere I go, preaching the Gospel in the highways and byways - and it’s what drives the longing in my heart to see our precious, broken world reconciled to it’s perfectly loving God.

Identity: Living in Light is also called to help people live in their true identity as children of God - wild and unrestrained, without fear and without comparison with full permission to be themselves without holding back. As someone who is always evolving on this journey of identity unveiled - who is herself discovering so much freedom to be a voice and not an echo, slowly but surely caring less and less about what the world thinks - is something that I have been able to help others to also do through my workshops, fashion courses, image consultancy and teachings.   

Image: Because of my fashion background, my love for colour, fabrics, ethnicity and creativity I am able to share the love of God through my fashion and lifestyle label and my image consultancy and I am able to help bring people into a greater sense of their true identity as image-bearers of Christ.

Intercession: Without prayer nothing changes and my heart is to live a life of prayer. The fourth ‘I’ that Living in Light is built upon is the value for and privilege of communicating with God on behalf of a broken world - and for all things to be discovered and pursued in prayer first, before we will ever get to see them show up in our natural worlds.

Living in Light is forever unfolding and I love discovering all that it is becoming. I love this adventure of shining God’s glorious light through this brand and through my life. And I sincerely pray that your personal experience with Living in Light, would be SO drenched with love, light and liberty.

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