~While You Are Waiting~

 There are three ways the Lord answers our prayers. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it's no, and sometimes He just wants us to wait and trust Him. Sometimes God wants to give us what we have asked for but its not the right time yet. Waiting isn't easy but it is worth it! I think the hardest part of waiting is not knowing what to do with yourself. Well, here are a few things you can do while you are waiting!                  First of all keep working! 2 Timothy 3:14 "But continue thou in the things which though hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." A lot of times while we are waiting we get discouraged and something inside of us says, "God isn't answering your prayer so must not be working in your life. You might as well just quit!" Well my friends, that is the VERY last thing we need to to do! We need to continue doing everything that we know the Lord wants us to do. Not only does it please Christ, it also helps you keep your mind off your troubles and on HIM. You might even want to pray and ask the Lord if there is MORE you can do for Him!                                                  Secondly, don't worry! Psalm 56:3 says   " What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." I know how it is to wait. Sometimes you wonder why you have to wait and others seem to be getting everything they want in life. People will say that if you are right with the Lord and you have reached some kind of spiritual plateau, the Lord will answer your prayer the way you want Him to. While it is true that sometimes God is waiting for us to display some faith, sometimes it is just not the right time for Him to give us what we desire! It doesn't make anyone a lesser Christian! Now don't get discouraged when things take longer than we expect because His ways are perfect.He has never had and never will have bad timing!                                 And last but not least, don't wait to    worship! How many times have we said "If God ever does this, Im going to really worship Him!" Well that sounds good, but that is not the way things work. God was worthy of all the worship we could give him when He saved us! Everything else He does more than that is just extra benefits of being saved! My dad always says, "you can't worship and worry at the same time!" We just have to put our trust in His plan and worship Him knowing that whatever happens will be okay! The Lord has everything under control. So you might want to just go ahead and worship while you are waiting because he is worthy! Psalm 40:1-3 " I waited patiently got the Lord and he inclined unto me, he heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath but a new song in my heart."

*A Life Worth Living*

My heart is so heavy thinking about the burdens that so many are carrying. I think about the elderly person in the nursing home that everyone seems to have forgotten about and the loneliness that they must face. I think about the moms and dads that sit up and cry all night over their children that have gone astray from the faith. Or what about the teenage girl that called "fat" at school and now she is so broken that she starves herself till she feels like she can fit in with the popular girls. I think about the boy who has started using drugs and it has gotten so out of control he's thinking about taking his own life just to end the pain. Or sometimes I'm reminded of all the little boys and girls who are growing up in emotionally and physically abusive homes where their parents are drunks or drug abusers. Perhaps one of the greatest battles that goes on in today's society is the battle of the mind. Satan doesn't play fair. He knows exactly how to get you to do what he wants you to. He may be telling you things like, "no one cares about you. No one cares if you live or die so you might as well just end it all right now." Well my friend, that is a VERY big lie! You may think, "nobody knows what I'm going through!" Your momma doesn't seem to care, your daddy doesn't seem to care, your friends can't understand the struggle that you are facing. The bible says in Hebrews 4:15, "For we have not a high priest which cannot be touch with the feelings of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." That means that we will never go through anything that Jesus didn't go through himself. Even on the cross when He was experiencing the greatest pain and the biggest burden any other human has had or felt, His Father literally turned His back on Him. So I guess you could say He knows how you feel. In Psalm 55:22a the Bible says, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee." That word "sustain" means to carry. You see, not only does He understand what you're going through and cares about you, He's also going to carry you through! You never have to walk alone! So is your life worth living? Well, the Creator of the universe thought your life was so important that He came to this wicked world and died on a cross so that you might have life! So I guess if my life is important to God then its a life worth living!

It's Just A Little Longer

I find myself feeling uncomfortable and out of place in this world. I look around and see all of this evil and it seems that the only thing that is desirable is heaven. My heart longs for something that this world can not give me, so I know  that heaven is my home and is waiting for me.:) This world longs for joy to last forever but it passes away. They want peace and comfort forever, but without The Lord, it's only for a season.  But I am looking for a city where the soul never dies and where the Son always shines. It makes me think of the song Mary Beth and I wrote when I was 8 and she was 12 , "Its just a little longer till I see my Jesus. It's just a little while till I see my Lord. I'll walk upon heavens golden shores, it's just a little longer till I see my Lord." 

Since the post today was kind of short I would like to take a moment and say thank you to all that read our blog. Every week we have people tell us "hey we read your blog" and that is amazing!!! I cannot tell you how much it encourages us. Thank you all again and have a blessed day!

~7000 Miles To Go~

Today we left to go on a 7000 mile, 5 and 1/2 week long road trip out west. We usually do one big long west trip every year and one or two smaller ones. This trip we are going to be in South Texas, West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, and finally end up in Tennessee! We have never been to California before as a family so we are excited about that! We ask all of you to pray for us to have a safe, breakdown free, trip! Also, please help us pray that we will have people saved and that we will be an encouragement everywhere we go. We are so excited about what the Lord is going to do!                                   Sometimes people ask us what we do with ourselves while we are traveling. Well we sing a LOT! Most of our practicing gets done while we are riding down the road. Also, we watch movies, read, get school work done, work on blog posts, pretty much anything we do at home we can do on the bus. We also do a LOT of fellowshiping! Haha! You would think we wouldn't have anything to talk about since we are together all of the time but somehow we manage to find things. I love sitting around and talking as a family. I think it makes us closer when we share things that are on our minds or even if it is just something funny that's happened. I really think that a family that prays together, and that communicates together, stays together! I know it makes us stronger as a family. We love what we do but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't love it as much if we didn't get along. Sure, not everyone gets along ALL the time. I mean goodness, we are in a 45 foot bus! There are going to be some struggles! LOL! But with the Lords help we can overcome whatever struggles we have. We are excited to see what the Lord has in store not only on this trip, but in our ministry as a whole. We are praying that He will work greatly through us! 

~Brianna, The Hero~

So this past week something new happened to us that had never happened before! We pulled up into the church to get our equipment out of the bus and we couldn't get the door opened! We couldn't figure out what in the world was keeping it from opening! We got a flashlight and turns out there was a little screw stuck in the door! Momma and Daddy tried different ways to get it out but we soon realized we weren't going to be able to get it out without a screw driver. Not a big deal right? Well, it wouldn't be except all the tools were underneath the bus. Yep, we were in a pickle! I thought, "I bet we are the only singing group ever that had to cancel a meeting because they couldn't get out of their bus!" Obviously we made it out or you would've most likely heard about it on the news. Haha! We were able to get an emergency window open. Then we had to figure out who was going to be lowered out. It had to be a small person because the window opening isn't very big at all! So my little sister Brianna decided to brave it and volunteer. So we lowered her out the window and she was able to get a screwdriver out from under the bus and we finally got the door opened! Brianna was the hero for the day!! It was one of those stories where if I wasn't there, I wouldn't have believed it! We all said, "only we can get stuck inside our bus." Never a dull moment around here!

*You Can Rise*

Many of us have been through hard times. You wake up and wish to go to back to sleep because that's the only peace you can get. You see some  people have trials that everyone knows about, then others that are hidden and they have trapped inside of them. You never know what someone is going through. But one of the most wonderful things about being saved is that we don't have to bear our own burdens.1 Peter 5:7 says,

"Casting all your care upon Him; for he careth for you." 

It probably would sound crazy to an unsaved person to tell them not to worry but let someone whom they've never seen take care of their problems, but let me tell you the most real things in the world are not seen. 

I know it's so hard sometimes because we want to fix everything on our own, but God (I promise) will do a far better job fixing your problems. Sometimes it seems like there is no end, you think you will just have to live with worry, fear, or whatever it is, but you don't have to. God wants you to give them to Him because He can handle them a lot better. So have faith in Him and you will RISE out of your darkness. 

Micah 7:8 

"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness The Lord shall be my light." Through Him you can rise!

*The For Real Stage Fright*

When you are in front of people all the time you need to be prepared for anything. You can see things from the stage that's going on that no one else can see. You see people walking around talking, kids acting up, it can get interesting! We've even been in services where people have had seizures and had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. I think the scariest things that happened while we were singing was about 6 or 7 years ago. We were on stage and right in the middle of the service these gangster looking guys came in with long black coats. Keep in mind that this was in the middle of July in the south so it was about 90 degrees outside! And if that wasn't strange enough, one of the men had one hand inside his coat like he was holding a gun! Now, I've seen this kind of thing in movies before so you can just imagine the scenarios that were going through my mind. I thought to myself, " I am going to die. It's going to be all over the news that two guys came into the church service and shot the singers." I was preparing for the worst as you can tell. I just knew we were going to be one of those martyr's that go down through history that have given their lives for the cause of Christ. Well, turns out they just came in and sat down and they stayed for the whole service and then left right afterwards! I guess I will never know about the coats or why the guy kept his hand in his jacket. Oh well, I'm kind of glad! Haha! I feel like they were up to something and the Lord protected us from it. So that is the story of how we survived a gangster attack on the church. ;) It just goes to show you that when you travel and sing, "there just ain't no tellins" as my Dad would say, what will happen!