Wednesday, October 19, 2016

~My Greatest Adventure~

 
Wow! So much has changed since Ragan and I created this blog of our adventures on the road! Ragan is now at Crown College taking cosmetology and I am now married to the love of my life, Andrew Jones! For those of you who don't know, Andrew and I still travel with the Brady Rochester Family full time.  God has definitely blessed in allowing us to be in 40 states since we've been married!! 40! Andrew sings and plays guitar and mandolin amazingly and it is SUCH a blessing to do what we love doing together, for the Lord! We have had a lot of people ask how we met and so I thought I'd tell you all our love story!!

About 10 years ago we were at a church in Indiana and Andrews dad, Jeff Jones, was in evangelism and his family was at the meeting as well. About a year later, Daddy got a call from Bro. Jones saying that he was now pastoring in Boyne City, Michigan and wanted to have our family in for a meeting! So every year for about 6 or 7 years we would go up there and sing so that's how we knew each other. 
Some of you are wondering how he became my boyfriend, well, I asked him! Haha! Seriously! Well he asked me and I chickened out and told him I wanted to wait. For some reason, thank the Lord, he still wanted to come see me while we were at a church in Kentucky. So he came down for about a week and after getting to know him even better, I knew I loved him! Well I had created this nice little dilemma for myself. Here I was, loving him, and I told him I didn't want us to get serious a couple weeks before that! Way to go MB!! I mean I was just trying to be cautious but look where that got me. Anyways, the night before he left Ragan had convinced me to just go ahead and tell him how I felt. So there we were, sitting on the couch in the bus and I looked at him and said, "I don't want to be your friend anymore." Wait! What? I sure have a way with words!! NOT!! Haha! Andrew just got this strange look on his face and goes, "should I leave?" Bless his heart... I barely saved the conversation from disaster by saying "No! I don't want to be JUST your friend!" That got me a smile:)
So for about 3 months we had a over the phone, long distance relationship until  September 17th when he moved to South Carolina! I was so excited the day he was moving down! I was going to get to see him more and we were talking about getting married in the future. He was also moving into the house, right beside my grandparents, that we would live in for a while after we were married. Well while we were moving his stuff in we got a phone call from my cousin Macalah  saying she needed our help. She was supposedly doing Ragans senior pictures at Pawpaws cabin at the pond. Little did I know they were getting the cabin all ready for my engagement! So Me, Andrew and my cousin Madison headed down there. When I walked into the cabin our favorite song was playing and there were THE MOST BEAUTIFUL red roses I had ever seen! They had candles lit and the lights down so it looked like something from a fairytale! I walked in and Andrew got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! And I said "YES!!!" I was shaking, he was shaking, Ragan and Madison and Macalah were shouting in excitement, it couldn't have been a more perfect moment!! 
 


 Six months later on March the 11th, Andrew and I were married! We've now been married for 7 months! Time is going so fast! I am so thankful for my husband and the life we have together as a new family. God has blessed me so much! I must say this has been my greatest adventure yet and I CAN NOT WAIT to see what our life together will hold!! I always knew that this verse was true but it has really become a reality for me! I hope this is a blessing to someone who maybe is praying the Lord will send them someone to love and to spend the rest of their life with. God is faithful and if you are faithful to HIM, He will give you MUCH MORE than you ask for! Don't get discouraged! Just keep trusting HIM!                           

“Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭37:4-5‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Don't Wait To Pray

“Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.”
Psalms 116:2 KJV
Prayer is powerful. I have seen a lot of prayers answered the past few weeks! I am so thankful I have a God that inclines His ear unto His children. You may not always feel like your prayers are being answered but God does answer prayers! It may be "no", it may be "yes", or it might even be "wait my child I have something much better for you" but your prayers are heard and answered! I will tell you praying will not only help you spiritually but mentally. “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:18 KJV  When I take my focus off this world and start focusing on how big my God is, all of a sudden my problems start looking a lot smaller. Remember this, God is faithful. 

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Making A Difference

"A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.
She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”
The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, “Well, I made a difference to that one!”
The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved."
— Adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren C. Eiseley
You may only lead 1 person to The Lord in your life, or you may lead 1,000 to The Lord. Either way you have allowed God to use you to make a difference in the world.  So just keep trying your very best to get those starfish in the water. People may think your attempts are pointless but just keep doing it. God doesn't judge us by our fruit but by our faithfulness.


Thursday, January 14, 2016

*We're Baaaaaack*

A lot has been going on in the Rochester family this past year. Between me graduating this year and MaryBeth getting married in March,we haven't had much time to do much writing. My goal is to have a blog every Saturday starting January 16. We appreciate those who take the time to read our blog and for those that have asked when we are starting back!