Ok so full disclosure this article really should have come out a few months ago but the advantage of the lateness is I get to tell you, my lovely reader, a little bit more! You’ll see it is worth the wait. So without further ado come mek mi tell you wah gwaan!!
Important Links:
The Gifted Network website - https://www.thegiftednetwork.net/
The Gifted Network Social media - https://instagram.com/thegiftednetwork?utm_medium=copy_link (Instagram)
https://twitter.com/GIFTEDNet?s=09 (Twitter)
https://youtube.com/c/TheGIFTEDNetwork (Youtube)
Prophet Shambraé Robb social media –
Matriarch. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary this is a woman who rules or dominates a family, group, or state, specifically : a mother who is head and ruler of her family and descendants. Upon familiarizing oneself with Prophet Robb and/or The Gifted Network community she leads will quickly understand why I say this word perfectly describes her. This 23 year old Kingdom phenom is a proud Jamaican-American and she really is everybody’s Jamaican cousin weh live a foreign but comes back home every holiday. She proudly spoke of how she has always lived her life between the two nations and has a deep connection to her island.
She recounted a story from her early life on one visit to her Grandmother in Jamaica, “I think one of my most memorable times there was the first time my cousins took me to the river and I didn’t tell anybody that I was going and we left. I think we walked for about an hour just roaming in the bushes until we got to the river. I wasn’t expecting to swim or anything like that and I remember I jumped off the tree and I got all my clothes wet, I got super super wet and dirty. When I came back home my parents were just like…what?????? It’s just one of those experiences that stick out in my memory.”
She has also gleefully welcomed her almost hubby into her culture. The soon to be Mrs. Gamble is scheduled to wed her Fiancé Mr. Jaquan Gamble later this week – in fact this publication will probably be one of if not the last to refer to her by her maiden name. I must send my hearty congratulations to the couple in advance. Kingdom marriage? LOVE TO SEE IT!
Becoming Prophet Robb
Prophet Robb had always been surrounded by church and ministry. Her father and grandfather were both in ministry and she grew up in church. She stated “Whether it was up here [the US] or in Jamaica I was always in church.”
She was first baptized at the tender age of 11, not because she had really made the decision to choose Christ but because it was expected of her, but because as she explains it “at the time it seemed like the thing to do, you know in most Pentecostal churches, you get to a certain age so once you start showing signs of puberty or that you’re changing in that regard, they want to get you baptized. It was more so a formality for me than a transformative process.”
Prophet Robb noted that she really got saved at 15 years old and she started preaching at that same age. The Lord had called her into ministry immediately! “It was really a God thing. A lot of people would say oh, I was influenced by my family, I was influenced by my father and grandfather but it wasn’t really the case for me because prior to being called to ministry I did not want to preach. The Lord literally just kinda back mi inna corner and said “listen this is what I want you to do.” So I submitted to the process in the best way I knew how at the time. I came back to God in May of 2013 and I preached my first message June of 2013.”
The road to “Prophet Robb” from this point was no easy feat for the young minister as growing up, becoming a woman and growing into her relationship with God and her calling would prove difficult for her. Over the years she would deeply struggle and face her fair share of resistance. She recalls how her youth and her gender seemed to be a sore point for many of the adults in the ministry space around her and that at one point her parents were even told that her preaching was nothing more than “a phase” and that it wouldn’t last. She said of this struggle, “There were definitely times I felt I was pushing against the grain. The scriptures tell us that a prophet has no honour in his own home and I had to deal with that.”
Thankfully, she did not let the naysayers stop her but instead pressed on trying her best to balance her youth, development and ministry. “It took years of trial and error, of mistakes as when I got saved I was labelled and referred to as “Evangelist Shambraé Robb ” so because that is what I was told that is what I believed. I believed that that was what God had called me to do not really analysing if that was really what God had said.”
But the prophetic had a hold on Shambraé and it showed. The tipping point came when she became very much tired of ministry and being simply what was dictated to her. “I began to realize that the picture of ministry that had been shown to me did not match up with my personality…I was the poster child for what a young female Church of God minister was supposed to be. I would go up and preach and be head covered, long skirt, all sort a tings and I did that because that’s what I thought was necessary…but then I could not keep that up because that was not who I really was. I had to suppress who I was in order to be what the church wanted me to be.”
For years, Prophet Robb kept up this image well into her college years and it wore her down. She found herself being different versions of herself to please those who lead her and had those traditional expectations of her. She found herself lashing out and damaging herself emotionally and mentally until she found herself wanting to be rid of it all. “The Lord really had to draw me back into a place of identity so I was having a conversation with God like, I’m done this was a good run but I don’t want to do this anymore You got like 4 or 5 good years out of me and i’m sure at some point it was beneficial but I don’t wanna do this anymore. The Lord asked me “Who are you, who have I called you to be.”’
That was it, the Lord challenged her to discover in Him who He had called her to be and she soon embarked upon the journey of discovering who she really was. She took time to seek God fully and over that time the Lord revealed that she was in fact called to be His Prophet. She resisted at first due to the concept of prophets she had at the time and she wrestled with the Lord over His word to her. “I went to church the next day and I was at the alter just crying and this lady came over to me and started praying over me and prophesying. She was practically screaming in my ears, “God said you’re a prophet, you are a prophetess, God said you’re a prophetess.””
Dumfounded, she began to embrace her new identity. For a year she did not minister. She took the time to study this new role, new identity that had been revealed to her by God. Over this time she began to feel at home, comfortable and her true identity came into sharp focus. “It was like an epiphany, everything was being revealed, everything was being exposed at one time.”
Prophet Shambraé Robb was born.
Stay tuned to discover what comes next for Prophet Robb in Part 2!!