03 Finding My Wife

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.To all who seek the Lord with an honest heart — grace and peace.

My life changed forever in 2017 when I married my beloved Shelby. But the story of how God brought us together goes back many years before that.

In 2009, I moved from Louisiana to Los Angeles to begin graduate studies at Pepperdine. At the time, I cold-called the office of Sir Lodwrick M. Cook in Sherman Oaks, simply asking if he would meet with me. I had only known his name from a building at LSU and didn’t even realize he was alive. Yet his assistant scheduled a meeting having little more than my first name and where I was studying (many are surprised to learn that Lod and my grandfather never met until I introduced them many years later over breakfast at the Lod Cook Hotel in Baton Rouge). That meeting became the beginning of a friendship, mentorship, and partnership that lasted until his passing in 2020. God used that relationship to shape my life in profound ways.

In 2014, after years of frustration with the direction of the government, I ran for Congress in Louisiana’s 6th District while also building Anedot. My grandmother—who had grown up Lutheran and later attended First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge—was living with me then. During that season, I found myself attending as many as three services week to week—with my grandmother, with my parents, and often alone.

Many mornings before sunrise, I walked the parking lot of our apartment listening through Scripture, determined to read (or listen to) the entire Bible from beginning to end. I realized I had read most of the Bible, but never as a single continuous book from start to finish. God used that season to deepen my dependence on Him and to strengthen my discipline in the Word.

During the campaign, the weight of possibly losing both the race and the company pushed me to a moment of clarity before God. I wrestled the pride of letting Lod, and countless others who believed in me, down. But I came to the conclusion that nothing in this world compared to knowing and being known by God. And with time and perseverance, the company grew far beyond the uncertainty of the early years anyway.

By 2016, after traveling the country and visiting customers in more than forty states, my mom asked me if I had “met anyone.” I hadn’t. But the question lingered. I decided to be intentional and signed up for Match.

That’s when I saw Shelby’s profile.

She had photos with long flowing hair, others with a pink pixie haircut, and a photo of her baptism. Something in me stopped. I thought, I could marry her. I sent her a message on the platform, but she didn’t reply.

All I had was her first name, city, and occupation. And with that, I found her on Instagram because that’s obviously what I was supposed to do next—and eventually discovered an old post containing her phone number from when she was doing house-call hair appointments.

So on August 26, 2016, I cold-texted her: “Shelby…?”

That same morning, she had been at the beach with her sisters and parents. She had prayed earnestly, telling the Lord she was ready to meet her husband, describing him specifically — and even asking that he would be an only child. I am.

We talked for weeks — almost all day, every day — discussing faith, beliefs, education, children. No stone I could think of was left unturned. I pursued her intently. Eventually, I convinced her to let me drive to Texas so I could take her on an actual date. We had no mutual friends, no shared connections, and lived in different states — but God had already gone before us.

We were engaged in November 2016 and married in January 2017. Because of the sheer amount of text messages and phone calls—we felt we had known each other our entire lives.

When we married, we made a clear decision before the Lord:we would fully trust God with children — however many or however few He chose to give us.

Since then, the Lord has filled our home: our first son in December 2017, our first daughter in spring 2019,• our second daughter in winter 2021, our second son in fall 2022, our third son in summer 2024, and another son coming in summer 2026.God has been faithful every step of the way.

In the letters ahead, I’ll share both the early days of our marriage and the ways the Lord began shaping our home, our faith, and our calling.

Peace be with you.