As I try to begin this blog I honestly don’t know where to start. Jesus has been doing so much in my spirit, my soul, and my heart lately that I find it extremely hard to express it all on a computer screen. But, here is a glimpse for each of you reading.
As you read I want to keep in your mind Ephesians 3:20:
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
God has been doing immeasurably more than I ever deserve or could imagine since I surrendered my life to him, but in the past 6 months He has really been showing up and showing Himself in new ways. It wasn’t ever that there was “less of him” but there were and are still times where I don’t relinquish everything into His hands.
In order to fully understand this story I will have to take you back to May & June of 2012. I was in the Philippines for the second time and I was strongly coerced to be apart of a ministry that I was completely uncomfortable with: a midwife clinic. I love babies, but I have never been able to stomach the birthing process (and I’m still not there yet). I never felt like I would have biological children. I was meant to adopt. End of story, or so I thought.
That day in the clinic Jesus did what He does best, rock my world. I was working with a teenager, who was 15 at the time and 8 months pregnant. Up until this point she hadn’t had any prenatal care, and she really didn’t want to have the baby in the first place. Rona, the diligent midwife student, found her and shared the gospel with her, and because of her persistence: I now sit looking into the eyes of this beautiful soon-to-be-mother. As I try to find her baby’s heartbeat, I feel this mothers anxiety, as if it were almost tangible.
“Doomp-Doomp”
Those two little thumps were all that it took to make this expecting mother, and this mortified of childbirth volunteer, to cry and praise God amongst it all.
At that moment God showed me the beauty of being a mother, and what a wonderful gift it was to carry life inside of you. A gift by God only given to women. At that moment God flipped my world upside down by whispering the words, “You were made for this. I have made you to be a mother.”
After hearing those words it was a desire that I could not shake. I longed to be a mother. I prayed for God to send me the right man so that my children would be raised by two parents who loved the Lord. I prayed and prayed, and even tried to make the wrong people the right people. When I would tell others this desire that I could not shake they would all respond the same way, “Shelby, you are twenty…slow down.”
I continued to pray for God to send me the right person, or for him to strip this desire from my heart until He was ready for me to fulfill it. Months after months went by, and this insatiable desire was still there. So many times I would cry out to God, “Why wont you take this from me!?”
God didn’t take this desire away from me. Instead He showed me why it wasn’t his plan for my life right now. He spoke to me and said, “Shelby I need you to surrender not only your desires to me, but your plans, your dreams, everything you have to me.” I did. And then God called me to the World Race.
“This is why! You couldn’t be in 11 different countries in 11 months if you were a mother, Shelby. Trust me. Give me everything, hold nothing back and watch me do immeasurably more than you could ever plan/think/imagine/dream.”
Okay God, I get it. I’m yours, so that means my plans and desires should be yours too. The World Race, okay. Didn’t see this one coming.
God solidified the call to the World Race 3 times, and I really didn’t understand why because I felt like I understood the first time. Now, looking back I see why God knew it was important to tell me not once, not twice, but three times.
My prayer to God was something like this, “Okay Jesus, I’m yours. These 11 months, they are yours. This life, it’s yours. This money, its yours. Please help me keep my eyes on you and don’t let me be distracted by anything, especially guys, over this next year as I prepare and over these 11 months while I’m gone. Help me loose myself in you, so that nothing else matters.”
Peace that surpasses all understanding flooded over me. This was God’s plan. I was finally letting go of my desire to be pursued by anybody other that God. I was letting go of my desire to be a mother. I was letting go of all of my plans. I must have prayed that prayer 500 times before I was called to the World Race, but this time I truly meant it. Everything was HIS.
Let’s fast-forward to February. I was at a Christian college conference telling everyone who would give me five seconds about the race and what God was teaching me through this time. The theme of this conference was compassion- and because of the subject, a lot of the sessions were about adoption.
WRECKED was a good way to describe me. I was hearing these beautiful stories of adoption and learning more and more of how adoption is the closest representation to the gospel outside of Jesus himself. I didn’t cry, I wept. Thankfully, and ultimately because God is sovereign, I wasn’t the only one who was wrecked. Justin Baird made his grand entrance that weekend.
Well I say he made his entrance, but He made his entrance in unexpected ways that weekend. We actually met two years ago, at mission’s interviews with our college ministries. He was from a different school and he was going to Canada to work with college students and I was going to the Philippines to work in an orphanage. We met that weekend because during our doctor’s clearance we both ‘had’ high blood pressure. As we were sitting there waiting for the doctors to clear us we both laughed because neither of us had high blood pressure up until that point. (God is sovereign)
Then we met up again in December while we were both working with our college’s again in Atlanta with a homeless ministry. The entire team got really close over that trip, but still neither of us thought anything of it. (God is sovereign)
Back to the conference, since we were both wrecked we talked about our love for adoption. But it didn’t stop at the conference, conversations between us continued.
Two weeks later he texted me a link I like adoption (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rztYMMhMT2Y) I cried throughout the video and said, "this is what I want my family to look like!!" And he says "me too! Lets just get married and have 8 beautiful children from all around the world…heaven in our home." So it started there and the friendship literally caught on fire. With Jesus being the beginning and the center of everything.
So as our feelings continued he shared with me how much he felt like I was the girl God had for him. I then told him about the world race dating policy and I had all expectations that he wouldn't wait. He responded by stating that, “I would be his Rachel and he would wait for me because he was sure that I was the woman God had for him.”
Remember that I didn’t see this one coming mentality I had about the World Race? This was exactly the same feeling.
After our feelings were out in the open we had a long talk about wanting this to be of God, and that we wanted to seek His face in the midst of this. So we prayed for 11 days before we ever spent time together (God is sovereign: 11 countries, 11 months, 11 days). When we came together after those 11 days of intentionally and intensely praying God revealed to us the same thing: this is from Him, and even though this goes against everything that is normal or expected: His timing is perfect.
If I had to describe us in one word I would say “peace”. Never in my lifetime have I had zero doubt, and I can honestly say I have none when it comes to Him. God has aligned our hearts so beautifully. Ultimately a desire for HIM, a desire for orphans, for adoption, and for the nations. We are both Type A and planners, but neither of us saw this one coming. We couldn’t have imagined this in our wildest dreams. God is continuing to shape our futures, and while there are so many unknowns, we both know that He will lead us step by step.
So here we are. He lives about 2.5 hours away and we have met each other’s families and explained our situation and how God is leading us. He's 100% supportive of the race and believes God still has so much to teach us, apart. He knows that as much as God has called me to the World Race, that He has called him to it as well, by ways of praying for me and my team and letting God use this separation to make us even stronger. He's actually heading up the majority of the Public Relations part of the race and diligently helping me fundraise and network.
As I type this, he is in Ethiopia… and through this separation God is preparing us both for the race. He is continuing to teach both of us hard lessons, and continuing to mold us into the man and woman that He has designed us to be.
I go out on a limb by sharing my heart with you for several reasons. First and foremost: because God called me to be transparent with my team and my supporters. Secondly: because we need your prayers as we both prepare mentally, physically, emotionally, and most importantly spiritually for the World Race. Thirdly: because I know, that many of the members on my team are where I was just 6 months ago: wrestling with the desire to be pursued by someone. Hear me out guys/gals: give it to God and watch Him utterly rock your world. The only thing that’s stopping Him is you. Relinquish that desire into his hands and let Him write your love story.
