YWCA Women of the Year Event

Through this experience of being nominated as a YWCA Woman of the Year, God has laid it on my heart to share a powerful illustration written by my business mentor. It focuses on the importance of serving others with our unique gifts.  No matter how big or small we are, how important a job seems or if we will get recognition or not…..we cannot give up because we are part of a greater plan that we cannot always see.

Sandbagging for Jesus By Dennis Seeb
During the flood of 2009 I spent a lot of time sandbagging. Sometimes I was assisting on location and some times at the Fargo Dome.  On location there may be as many as fifty or seventy-five or more people in a line of all shapes and sizes, all ages passing a sand bag from one person to the next. If you are in that line your role is to do just that. If you are the tenth person you get the bag from the ninth person and hand it to the eleventh person and so on. That is how it works. Eventually it makes it to the end of the line and then gets properly placed.  It is an effective and efficient way to get the job done.  When you are one of the first people in the line away from the river you never really see the end result. You can look one way and see the bags coming to you and look the other way and see the bag going away from you. That is where faith comes in. I am trusting that each person will do their job. That is what I believe.

What if you were back at the Fargo Dome working there miles from the river? That requires even more faith. What if you had one of the simple jobs of opening up the sand bags? How important is that role?

Everyday our encounters with people are just like that. When we truly live what we believe in does it matter what part of the line we are in? Sure it would be nice to see the finished project once in awhile and I believe Jesus gives us each that opportunity on occasion and it is wonderful. But most of the time we are somewhere in the middle of the line so that is where our faith comes in to play.   Our job is to live centered in Christ, to do our role and then allow faith to take over.

Today I am seeing a finished project in my life. Tomorrow, I will be in the middle, or maybe at the start of the line. It is a great honor to accept this nomination but it is an even greater honor to make it widely known that I never would have achieved my success without the tireless work of those around me. 

Shelle M.
Mrs. ND International 2011

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