#182: Lola Oshinowo made a pivot after spending time in prayer that made all the difference for her first book

Next up, we're going to talk to Lola Oshino. Did I say that right? Go ahead and unmute yourself and share with us just a little bit about who you are and your. Your journey with publishing your book.

Yes. Thank you, Shelly.

My name is Lola Oshinowo and I am originally from Nigeria. I have been in this country for 42 years. My husband and I migrated from England to the United states.

End of 1979. 80. Came here because my husband wanted to work on his PhD at the Ohio State University. That's how I came to this country.

Yes, I'm from Ohio.

I don't even want to start that. Anyway, so we, we moved to Columbus, Ohio and what, what. You know, before leaving England, I had gotten my degree in computer science. And so getting to the United States, I was able to start working kind of like a. Like a software developer. So I am a coder by trade. I code computer, computer applications and all that. And I did that for a good 37 years. And being a believer in Christ all this time, I just been wanting to pay back. So when I got an early retirement, I retired when I was 55 years old. And I'm like, I need to do something, Lord, what would you want me to do? And serve him. I wanted to serve him. So my husband is an elder in our church here. I teach Bible study, women's Bible study, I counsel women. And so when I retired.

I just continued. There's a website that I created as a software developer when there was no social media.

I coded the website.

My first website was 2004 HTML.

All right. Yes, exactly. And I coded that and it was the comforters room.com at that time. The Comforters Room. The reason that came through was because I personally have had a lot of health issues, a lot of pain. I have fibromyalgia. One pain here and there. And the one source of comfort for me was just totally depending on the Holy Spirit to help me.

My name for the Holy Spirit in my world is the comforter. He's the one that comforts me. So hence the comforter's room. Now when I retired and social media was out on a life, and I'm like, so I'm going to roll the comforter's room out to Facebook and I created a group, the Comforters Room. And currently we have.

Almost 1,000 people in the group. There was a time had about 2,000. Facebook flushed them out, the people that are not active anyway. So I'm working on that. And each time.

Time.

And I do biblical Counseling for a lot of people, especially women, it's not uncommon to have couples that have filed for divorce and they're divorcing and they come into our house and I would do biblical counseling. And they. Before they leave my house, they're hugging and kissing each other through the glory of God. And then you'll hear people say, you need to write a book. I will say something. They go, you need to write a book. And I'm like, okay, whatever. So. And then there's a theme that kept going in my posting. Whatever I post, I'll put hashtag Lola's thoughts, you know. And so I. And the one thing that God has blessed me with, sisters, is that peace. The peace that transcends all understanding. So in 2019, after burying my mother, I'm like, okay, I'm going to try to see if I can do some writing. And I'm like, maybe next year. And there was this company that are publishing company. They. I don't know how they knew I was looking to write, but they contacted me. I actually paid them that I was going to write a book. I think I paid them almost $3,000 that their fees. And I told them no rush whenever I get to it. And the title of my book was.

Peaceful Living through the Knowledge of the Character of God. Because if we truly. I do believe that if we know the character of God, we will have living peace knowing him. And I was writing that book, I'm writing it for. With this other organization. And I kid you not, I. I do not know how I found CBA just came through my newsfeed. I'm like, oh, let me look at that. And.

I remember Carly, or when maybe I called you or you texted you, like, I would like to look into this. And of course, I joined cba, I think, in March of last year, and I was still writing the other book. And then George Floyd happened.

That day. We used to have. I think we used to have a.

I don't know, we would meet Shelley. I think we used to have Zoom. Not Zoom. I think it was Zoom meeting, whatever it was. And I was sharing that.

Yeah, the productivity parties, maybe.

Productivity party, yes. And I was saying to them, I said, look, everybody. So Deb.

Asked, so what progress have you made this week? And I'm like, I did not make any progress. I lost my peace because of what had just happened with George Floyd. I could not write anything. And on. And I was explaining to the group about the productivity party, about why I didn't write. And literally the Holy Spirit was Like, why are you whining literally in my thoughts? Why are you whining? You who knows how to pray? The one powerful thing you do well is prayer. Why are you whining? Why don't you teach these parents, especially African American parents, how to pray to cover their children in prayer? And I'm like. And it was like. And I actually said it out loud to the productivity group. I said, I'm being led to shelf this writing that I'm doing and write a prayer book. And they all said, go for it, Lola. Do it. Do it.

Yes. And you have the book now, right?

Right here?

Yeah.

So I started writing because the passion I had with the George Floyd death was. George Floyd was the same height as one of my sons. Wow. And I'm like, wow, that could have been Timmy.

How can.

And I just could not. I wrote every waking moment. I just. The Holy Spirit just poured it, and I was just praying the word of God. The word of God and within. By August, I was done. I'm like, whoa, now what do I do? And what do I do? And seriously, everyone at cba, I just. The productivity party, I'm like, I'm done. I'm done writing this. You know, over 30,000 words, 142 pages. Where do I go? And everybody just chime in, you need to edit. You need to. So I just. And of course, the problem publishing path that was on this. On the CBA.

Website, I read up and I'm like, okay, I need to edit. I need. I need to self edit. I need to do. Anyway, I just followed it, and literally, CBA was God sent. I think God knew what he needed to do with. With. With me, what was in my. In me, the writing that was in me. And that's why, again, I still don't know how I found cba, but I found cba.

We're glad you did.

Night. From the time I started writing to the day, I published on Amazon, 80 days. Within 90 days, it went up. Right now, I have not done much marketing. I'm just now starting to market it, and it's doing so well. I get emails from people that are using it for their conference, women's conference, prayer conference.

It was just God. God did it. Using cba, using everybody in the productivity party.

The editors.

Heather Hart was the one that designed my cover, and everything just went through. And I think I spent less than 500 bucks. Yeah.

So you started with an investment of 3,000?

No, I got my money back, by the way. Let me tell you how I got my Money back when as an it, I was director of information technology for years, and managing contracts was when I did best, especially technology contract. So I brought that. That here when I was signing with that organization. Oh, I, you know, I did everything they wanted me to do, but I did not sign a contract.

I said, I will give you the money. I gave them the money, but I did not sign a contract.

So because I didn't sign a contract, I just said, give me my money back. And they.

Praise God, because at this point, you spent $500 to publish your book. Now you have 2,500 to invest in marketing or other things.

Exactly. I am just. God was in it. And the other. And I would have written another book, to be honest with you, but this past year and a half has been very hard for my family. Literally, we lost 11 family members.

One after the other, including three of my brothers. And so there was a time. And then when I was writing another. Another testimony. When I was writing, I was as sick as a dog, if you remember, Shelly. I had fibromyalgia, was just kicking my tail. And I just. I just kept pressing on because I got a lot of encouragement from CBA members from the productivity party. Was godset and everything, just like that. And so I'm gonna start marketing, and then we'll see where the book goes. Right now is five stars on Amazon.

And I have not even done anything, so I'm hoping that God will continue to use. There's still a lot of books in me. A lot of books. I would say maybe five books that I could literally start talking and it'll. It'll spill out of my. Of my body. So anyway, it was. It was praise.

God is using you.

God is using you and CJ in. In a mighty way. And so I thank God for you. He sent me your way. How he did it, I don't know. And I don't have to know. Yeah.

A couple takeaways I wanted to point out from your testimony. And just story is, first of all, when it's God's timing and, you know, he will provide. Right. You know, that was Jennifer as well. But also, secondly, don't be afraid to pivot. You know, you had another book that you were writing, and then the Holy Spirit was like, no, no, you know what? You. You wrote a book that meets a need. It is a huge need right now in culture. You know, so that's why it's selling. That's why, you know, it's.

Exactly. It's selling itself.

But you were afraid to pivot and put aside that other book. You can always come back to it later to do the book that God's leading you to do now. But thank you so much for sharing this.

I think the important thing is with God, if you can confirm in your heart that you're hearing God, it is foolish to not obey him. Obedience is the key. So when I heard loud and clear that why are you whimpering? Write something, a book about how to pray the word of God over their children, all these African American, black and brown families.

How to handle those struggles. Thank you for letting me speak.

Yes, thank you for being here.