I’m preparing you for Nations

Let today be the day you hear His mercy whispering: “go and do beautiful things. Go and do them for Me. I know you do not feel equipped but my Spirit will give you strength in every moment you feel weak. I will give unmistakable confidence to be who I have called you to be. –Morgan Harper Nichols

We just arrived back to our little Tennessee home on the hill. Happy to be home in our comfort with our four furry children, but missing a big piece of our hearts that we left back in that village in Ecuador. Our hearts are overflowing with a heaviness we can’t even explain nor make sense out of. Holding hands tightly on that bus ride back to the airport with little words to speak as tears flowed freely. The both of us knew the ache that we were each feeling in the most similar of ways. We cried many times on that 4-hour ride out, missing and realizing that there is a bold call over our lives that we know we can’t ignore. Not any longer.

I don’t think the reality of us leaving truly hit me until we were about 30 minutes outside of the Guayaquil airport and I started sobbing. I couldn’t breath. Nothing, absolutely nothing in us wanted to leave that place. Just like the last time I was there. Thoughts running wild of leaving the two people that God specifically placed in our lives who run the ministry. Sadness of leaving those children that we had grown close to. And concerns of leaving villages who are so full of joy, yet so lost to the true joy of Christ. A place where there was a need, with little to fulfill those hurting ones.

When we were boarding that plane heading to Ecuador on Friday June 7th, 2019- I couldn’t help but realize that the day that John McLeod and I were born, God knew that we would be sitting there in that Atlanta airport, in that exact place, heading to a country with beating hearts for His calling. For beating hearts for what’s next. For a hunger that craves the exact position that He wants our lives in 30 something years later. There have been so many instances to reveal themselves throughout the last little bit that has shown His interwoven mercies in all of this. How this has been planned for long before we ever knew. In the moments that we questioned His plan through life’s agonies and life’s beauty, He already had it laid out so perfectly. I can hear him now- “Be still child, I’m preparing you for the nations.”

With what used to be a tired hallelujah, that He manifested into restored praises. With the broken pieces of our hearts, His wonder was found in the smallest of things and the mending of what had been torn apart. We hear you calling us out, but why us God? We are broken human beings who have failed you so much. The enemy tells us that we aren’t enough. But God reminds us that those are the ones He wants. The tattered ones, the ones that by grace have been renewed and rebuilt. The stories that He can use to show others that He loves us through the mercy of a father’s eyes, not the brokenness of the human.

John and I have felt this sense of something big coming for about a year and a half now, with absolutely no idea of what it was. None but following God in whatever that may look like. And as Jeanette finally put into words for us: It’s like walking through life blindly, putting one foot in front of the other with our hands held out wide. YES…Here I am, Send me.

 

Many of you now know that we took this trip to Ecuador to seek and get still in a place that has been divinely placed in our lives. Stories that I could write for days of His promptings that I someday will. What a journal holds now because it’s too much to deny and it’s too incredible to forget. Nothing that we could have ever imagined or dreamed for ourselves. But how foolish are we to think that we could map our futures more perfectly than the one He had placed over our lives since the day we were born when He said, “It is finished.” The beauty of it all is that we can’t make sense out of it all, we weren’t meant to. In the Bible, He simply says “Come and follow me.” He doesn’t say how or what it’s going to look like or how it’s going to feel. He just promises us that if we follow Him, He will take care of the rest. He is the weaver and the writer of each and every masterpiece. God please don’t ever let me take that pen out of your hand to take back into mine.

 

We spent each day in heavy prayer for His will to be done. For his boldness to be made clear. And it was. Like Carlos said this week. God calls us to follow Him, but we as humans are the ones who make it complicated. Mostly out of fear of the unknown and the lack of trust that He really will take care of us. The things we asked for, He gave to us. The exact prayers, He answered. The things we asked Him to show us, He left a masterpiece of an image in our heads to never be forgotten. The signs we asked for, He gave tenfold. Ask, and you shall receive.

The last morning, I spent deep time in prayer and searching His word. And the verse that came across my reading randomly said, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it.” Whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30:21)

I asked God for a bold prayer that day on our last day, a bold sign. And through a baptism on the Pacific Ocean, He gave me that very thing as I watched John baptize a young man into those waters and raise him up again. I ran up to Jeanette with tears in my eyes, and through the goodness of God, He had given she and John and I the same words of peace in that same moment. He rained down on us.

 

 

Perhaps the scariest part of stepping out in faith is realizing that we have to let go of the comfort of what we have known for THIS season. Moving to Tennessee, we gave up everything- willingly, but it wasn’t easy in the midst. Careers, friends, family, comfort, identities. And it was the best thing that we ever did. It grew us and instilled a faith in us unlike any easy season ever would.  It was stepping one foot out of that boat slowly, and we feel that now He wants us to step out with both feet and follow Him even further.

 Your mission is the one call on your heart that screams louder than anything. And let me tell you, our hearts are screaming louder than anything we’ve ever felt or experienced. There is no way to see the ins and outs of the road that is ahead of us. That’s why we must trust and yield with beating hearts when He says go here, be there, or be still and wait. That everything that we have ever endured and overcome is a part of His beautiful masterpiece that He has been building all along. Being faithful in the little things will produce perseverance in the big things.

Sometimes I often ask myself. If the bible was still being written, what would “Our” story look like in there. Would it leave a legacy for Him? Would it change lives for eternity? Would we be doing the very thing that God had laid over our lives when we were born or would we be too scared to get out of that boat and fall into His arms in full surrender?

We are going to continue seeking His will in this and are asking for bold prayers with us. We know that the road ahead will not be easy and is filled with so many unknowns but we will grow in ways that we’ve never experienced before and through grace, will end up EXACTLY where He wants us to be.

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The McLeod's

Welcome to our blog! We’re glad you stopped by and we hope you come back and visit. We want you to be a part of our journey! We are John and Chelsea McLeod. Best friends who are embracing the most precious gift of marriage and life. On the way to be full time missionaries and currently living a life mentoring those broken by addiction from both sides of the pain- loved ones and those struggling with addiction. Here you will find our recorded histories of life, love, struggles, and the journeys that encompass our wanderlust spirits all with an unfailing love for God and His ever so perfect redemption and grace over our lives. Here lies a safe place where our minds wander off into the deepest places with documentation to never be erased. We don’t want our memories to fall between the cracks somewhere, so we write. We don’t want to forget how far God has brought us, so we make records that will prayerfully live on for generations and give others hope who have lost theirs. We met in the most divine of appointments thousands of miles apart that only God could orchestrate. Had our first date watching a fiery sunset go down over the Georgia coast, and ultimately fell in love over kindred spirits that beat for where and what God passionately filled our hearts with. Hindsight, and years later, we can see that God had big plans all along that we couldn’t see. Through our broken pasts, He was preparing us for each other and a future of redemption and testimony. {{{{Everyone has a story and this is ours:}}}}} He’s a Georgia boy, she’s a Carolina girl. ----Hi, I’m Chelsea!---- I’m a native Carolina girl who loves to explore anywhere I’ve never been. An old soul and an extroverted-introvert with a deep heart that overflows with passion and a hunger for God to use me to change this world for the better. Mysterious and meek to the eye, and particularly passionate for the very things that set my heart on fire, especially the things and people that my heart beats for. I get filled up in the untouched outdoors where I can always see and feel His splendor. I am a Master cosmetologist by trade with a BA in Social Work and Counseling. These which intermix daily. I absolutely love the career that God has placed me in and daily, it allows me to love on people all around me. If I can make one person smile a day, my heart holds a fullness that keeps me coming back for more. I believe in forgiveness and miracles because I’ve witnessed them both. I don’t want my life to be about what I accomplished but what God accomplished through me. To me, I’ve learned that in life there is good and bad, right and wrong, excuses and no excuses. But alongside of these very things is engulfed with a ton of grace, growth, and redemption. I don’t ever want to pay the cost of not following my heart, by spending the rest of my life wishing I had. ----Hi, I’m John!---- I’m a born and bred Georgia boy where my blood runs strong with salt water. I was born and raised on the coast where everything I did was engulfed with water and the outdoors. I’m a bold soul with a gentle spirit who loves to help others in any way that I can to believe in themselves and God’s plan over their lives. By trade I hold the title of professional hunter and fisher with a 100 ton captain’s license. What started in Georgia took me out to Alaska where I found my career there, then south Florida and the open blue water. I’ve seen a lot and experienced a lot of God’s beauty and I will be forever grateful for that. Today I’ve taken on the title of “Fisher of men.” After enduring a wearisome season of addiction, God called me to use my pain to help others in addiction ministry and it has become one of the greatest joys of my life. It’s what I live for in showing people they can overcome something that most think they can’t. Offering hope where there is none. Testifying that something they always thought they would be, is only a season that God is ready and wants to use. Where Chelsea serves alongside me pouring into the loved ones. It’s where my passion is, it’s where we love to help others find freedom the same way we did. Today, Chelsea and I are grateful for our struggles because we know that what the enemy meant for evil, God used for good. Here we will write and share. Not to glorify us, but to glorify Him and what He is doing in our lives. The magnificent ways that He is moving and the unfathomable circumstances that He has and will bless us with. All glory goes to Him. We hope you enjoy!!

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