Parent Compass Radio

Shelby: I'm successful only if I build this business and make a lot of money. I wasn't even thinking about my kids.

Kevin: We opened a couple months before COVID.

Kevin Jr.: She was always on her laptop and making calls.

Shelby: Since day one, we were not profitable. And then we lost a baby.

Kevin: Very confusing. Really, really dark, evil thoughts.

Shelby: My family would be better without me.

Kevin: There's not a promise that there won't be trials. It's just a promise that He'll deliver you out of it.

Shelby: I heard the Lord, "Be a wife and be a mom." Feeling inadequate rolled over into motherhood. We had Kevin, our oldest, and then we planned Paxton, our second. The idea of success was to be a successful businesswoman.

I'm successful only if I do this. Build this business, go out there and make a lot of money, and do all the things. I wanted to open a restaurant. I hadn't quite understood how much of a blessing it is to submit to your husband.

Kevin: I'm very analytical, so it just didn't feel like the right time. The timing of it just didn't make a lot of sense to me. A lot of restaurants don't work out. That was something that weighed heavy on me. I wanted to make sure that if we're going to give it the best go, since it's already challenging, that we need to be in the best financial situation possible. Kids needed to be older.

Shelby: I had just had Paxton, so he was two. Kevin didn't want to get in any debt. I was like, "Let's do all the debt." I hear from the Lord. I've seen in the Word, everything my hand touches, it prospers in the name of Jesus. I don't know what you're concerned about.

Kevin: How do you argue with that?

Shelby: Really disrespectful, actually, to him. Kevin just really didn't want me to do it, but I did it anyway. It was a restaurant made from scratch, healthy food, with salads, wraps, quinoa bowls, and sandwiches. We opened in 2019.

Kevin: A couple months before COVID. Perfect timing. We had four months before our main audience, 10,000 employees, just left. 50% of all small business restaurants have failed post-COVID. We were living that experience. Two parents working full-time. Sometimes you step into the house and you don't know if it's been a good day or a bad day. It's mostly bad days, so you tread lightly. It wasn't a lot of times of good news.

Shelby: I just kept pushing through. I never paid myself anything. I went to work every day. Since day one, we were not profitable.

Kevin: I remember one time I was getting ready for work in the morning. As challenging as my day can possibly be, I was thinking about how challenging her day is going to be. This doesn't seem like good success, like holistic success. I wanted more for her.

Shelby: And then we got pregnant, and we lost a baby. There are no words for someone who has lost a child. It's just really, really difficult.

Kevin: It was a strange time for us. A lot was going on with my wife starting her own business. It was a chaotic time.

Shelby: I'm blaming myself. You should have done this. You should have done that. Why were you this way?

Kevin: It was very painful, very hurtful, and very confusing. If the response is anything other than in a moment of crisis coming together, then it's the wrong response. That was something that we were able to share with our pastors and people we're close to. What we found is that we're not alone. One of our pastors actually lost a child as well. To share those testimonies and be there for support was very helpful. Keep the eyes on the Lord during the storm.

Shelby: I'd be really high and happy and be okay. And then all of a sudden, I would be so low that not one good thought would even come into my head about myself. Sometimes that my family would be better without me. Just really, really dark, evil thoughts. Kevin had started to see these patterns that I would go through. I can see those patterns in my mom. He said, "I think this is generational, and this is going to stop. This stops now."

Kevin: There is something to breaking cycles. I just wanted to take a step in faith, the opportunity to be the head of the household and to come together and pray about something that had been a form of bondage for her for many years.

Shelby: We came together. We prayed together. I haven't had an episode since then. Just completely set free from getting that low and having those sorts of thoughts.

Kevin: To see that lifted is night and day. That can be applied to other situations in our life.

Shelby: When something is so impulsive and you can't get out of it, it's definitely spiritual. It is deliverance. After we lost that baby, I started looking at my boys differently. More of a "Gosh, you're such a blessing to me. You're here. The Lord has blessed me with you." I started having this transformation of just seeing them differently in the face of that loss.

I told the Lord after that I didn't want any more kids. That's it. I'm happy with my two boys. Being a mom, trying to raise the babies, and trying to build this business at the same time, the amount of stress that occurred caused destruction in those relationships with the babies. There was so much stress on me, and I was taking it out on them. I wasn't spending the time to pray over them, like pray with them. If you read my notes, it's all about my business. There's nothing about my marriage, nothing about my babies. That's destructive.

Kevin Jr.: She has been working a lot. She was always on her laptop and making calls, so we didn't really get to ask her our questions that much.

Paxton: Yeah.

Shelby: And I wasn't even thinking about my kids. I wasn't thinking about what craft I'm going to do with them. I was thinking about how am I going to make my restaurant work.

Kevin Jr.: We weren't able to ride our bikes that much because she was working a lot.

Shelby: They went to a daycare. We had multiple nannies throughout this journey. We had daycare. I wasn't making any money. The business was just taking money, but yet I was having to pay someone to keep my kids so I could continue working in the business. Four whole years of no profitability. Towards the end, every day we were open was excruciating to me. Just very stressful.

Then I randomly get pregnant. We know how you get pregnant, but we both still don't know when or how we got pregnant. I'm telling the Lord, "Why did you let this happen to me? I told you I don't want any more kids. Do you remember what just happened to me? What if the same thing happens to me again? I don't know if I can handle that. I have my two boys. There's a risk that this one's going to be a girl, and that would be even more awful." Just seeing generational things within my family of the relationships between the daughter and the mom, I didn't want to be a mom, and I definitely didn't want to be a mom of girls.

My pastor says in his sermon, "Do not fear. The things that have happened to you in the past will not happen to you this year." I was just like, "Okay. Okay, Lord. Then you're going to have to protect this baby because I'm scared and I didn't want this." The Lord started giving me little visions here and there of me holding a baby, me nursing a baby, me taking care of a baby. The baby was always a little girl.

The more He would give me these little glimpses, the softer my heart would be. That is when I started thinking I don't know that I want to continue going with the store. I was at the end of myself again. I was involving Kevin a lot more. Would you pray with me about this? I'm fine with whatever, but let's seek the Lord together on what to do with our restaurant. We started involving our pastor, praying about it, and asking for wisdom. He really helped guide us in our prayers of just letting go and letting God show us what He wanted to do in that season.

I was brushing my teeth, and I heard the Lord say, "Close your restaurant. And for an entire year, I want you to seek Me, be in My Word, be a wife and be a mom." And that's all I want you to do for an entire year. What in the world? That is totally opposite than me. Be a mom. I'm still learning to be a mom. That's the last thing I would ever choose for myself. I want to be a restaurant owner. I'm a go-getter. In my head, I'm already thinking of what I'm going to do next after I close Cool Greens. I prayed about it, and I just couldn't escape it.

We went on an anniversary trip, and I said, "Babe, the Lord shared something with me and I need to tell you. He wants me for an entire year just to be a wife and just to be a mom and to close the store."

Kevin: I said the Spirit confirms that. I feel that. It felt like that was the way to go. It's something that I've been having in my heart for a while. For sure, relief. The time we spent praying in the Spirit led us to confidently come to a decision with the business. We felt a lot of peace with the decision, like supernatural peace.

Shelby: When we made the decision to close, everything happened so fast. We stepped into the favor of the Lord, and it didn't look how I thought it was going to look. I had so much favor with the landlord. He just let us out of our lease and he forgave us for a year's worth of back rent.

Kevin: Her peers said they never heard anything like that ever happen before.

Shelby: My team, they packed up and cleaned the entire store for me. I didn't ask them to. My equipment sold. Buyers were coming to me.

Kevin: She's just a genuinely sweet person, very empathetic. She was worried a lot about her employees. The blessing was already there for them. They already had career opportunities. Everyone had a safe soft landing. He was definitely going ahead of the situation.

Shelby: I'm in a lot of debt. Once I realized this isn't looking that great, the debt that we needed for the capital to stay open, I just kept accumulating on my name. I know that this does not hinder our future because it's in the Lord's hands. The Lord can use all avenues that He wants to, and we have open hands. It's a blessing to honor your husband. In hindsight, he was definitely right in all areas. It would have been such an easier journey for me if I had just said, "You know what? You're right. Let's wait for a better time when the babies are older."

Kevin: But that was also me not taking a hold of my obligation to be the head of household. If I felt really strongly about something, I should have stuck to my guns, so to speak.

Shelby: And all the bad consequences that come with it, praise the Lord for His protection over our marriage. A lot of marriages don't end well with a wife like that and also with debt and financial problems, especially when it was the wife who did it all.

We did this whole bet thing, the gender reveal. Is it a boy or girl? And I was like, "The Lord showed me it's a girl." Sure enough, she's a girl. She's the most amazing thing to me. I get to spend all day with her. She's fascinating and she's hilarious. I love her, and she loves me. Libby's a restoration baby. The Lord, He has restored what we lost. The Lord's faithful to do that in all families that have experienced loss.

Kevin: She would never envision herself as being a mother because of certain relationship things in the past. She did not want a daughter. The beautiful full circle of it was that the promise is 120% restoration. That's what we feel like we got with Olivia. She has a daughter now, and she can't even picture herself not having a daughter. She has a beautiful relationship with her daughter. That was the Lord's way of blessing us in a situation that you can have a lot of self-doubt or condemnation and some insecurity and vulnerability in. She's the best mom. It's been beautiful to see that kind of transformation.

Shelby: Once I made that decision to step out of the restaurant and into this place where the Lord was calling me to receive His grace in my weakest area as a mom, just be a mom, hang out with Libby all day. That's so not me, but I love it. I'm so happy and I'm so fulfilled. The Lord will take you through the journey gently and lovingly, and He'll take care of even your mistakes.

Kevin: As far as the house now, it's night and day. You step into a household and the vibes are very positive and uplifted. There's not that level of anxiety about tiptoeing around certain conversations. It's been really good, very refreshing.

Kevin Jr.: It feels good now that she's able to watch us ride our bikes and stuff. We have all these tricks we know how to do. My mom loves building with me and stuff. We have a little schedule after school and stuff. Sometimes ride our bikes, do crafts, or go to the library.

Kevin: She's very present. The kids definitely love having her, especially as our oldest. His mind's going a thousand miles per hour all the time. He could tell when she was distracted. Those activities that we have, our daily routine, that was not the case before. There's not enough time in the day. We're experiencing more good success.

Shelby: I didn't really realize how broken everything was because I was so focused on the business that I didn't see the things that were going on. Just being more present, I could see all the broken areas. My relationship with Paxton, our six-year-old, has just really been healed and repaired. We were fighting every day. He would blame me for weird things. You just don't see the brokenness when you're so veiled and focused on something you shouldn't be focused on.

I feel really good. I've learned more about what prosperity to God looks like and allowing the Lord to reteach the way that I think. Our focus cannot just be on material and on money. We're not just talking about financial prosperity. Number one, He wants your family prosperous. He wants our marriage to prosper in every area. He wants the relationships with my kids to be prosperous. This is what is important to Him.

Even in your failures, I love you. I'm still here for you. And if you're ready to step into what I have for you in this season, it's still waiting for you. We're just free. Free just being a mom, which is insane to me.

Kevin: We couldn't have predicted a pandemic, but we stayed together through that storm. I feel like we came out better for it. There's not a promise that there won't be trials. It's just a promise that if you keep your eyes focused on the Lord, He'll deliver you out of it. Coming together as one, praying about the situations, praying in the Spirit about really difficult situations like opening a business.

Shelby: He moved all these things in the way to try to get me here. I'm so hardheaded that I was just like, "No, I heard from you." And He's like, "Yeah, you actually heard me a little wrong, but that's okay. I still love you." God's idea of success is so much different than what we view success as, and it's so much better. Even in your mistakes, He can still supply everything you need to fix the mistake. When you just let go of things, His power really moves and He really operates. He created you. He knew how fulfilled I would be by just taking care of my children. When everything fails in your life that you think was a priority and you still find the Lord loving you so gently, that's transformative.

Guest (Female): It's really hard not to worry. He suffered from encopresis. Miserable disease from hell. Bullying at school. He didn't have very many friends.

Guest (Male): Every marriage needs a third party. His name is Jesus. Pride is not great for a marriage at all. Lord, can you work this situation out?

Guest (Female): We went to five doctors. I'm at the end of myself. I broke this bone right here, all the bones around my eye. I thought I was dead. Lord, this is my baby. Show me, what do we need to do?

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