Godly Friends Make All the Difference!

I have been so blessed with such amazing godly friends. I have a few very close friends who I can turn to for godly advice and are always going to give me encouragment and advice that is going to help me make the right decision. It is very important to have these type of friends. It is so easy to get caught up in the wrong crowd. I never have to worry about what me and my friends will be doing when we are together, I never have to worry about being tempted to do wrong when we are together. By the way, you can have a lot of fun without doing things that are immoral and illegal. Godly friends have made all the difference in my life. I have had friends that have betrayed me, and they have been the ones who have turned out to be the ones who have gone astray and aren't living for the Lord now. The ones who have stuck by me are the ones who are great examples for me and are always encouraging me. I am so thankful that God has given me these great friends who I can turn to in times of need. Godly friends are definitely a must have for a Christian. Surround yourself with good godly friends and you too will see that it does make all the difference.

"There are no bad days with God"

I am loving teaching! This year I have 7 students, 1 3rd grader, 3 5th graders and 3 6th graders. I do not teach all of the subjects for all three grades, but I do teach 9 classes...so it definitely keeps me busy. At the end of the day, I am very tired and normally very stressed, but I love what I do.

Recently, I heard a sermon at the VAIB, and the speaker was talking about any thing that happens in our lives is for the glory of God, and he said something that has helped me get through each day. "There are no bad days with God". At the end of some days, I feel like saying, "Today was a bad day, or today was pretty rough" something like that, but then I remind myself that there are no bad days with God. That quote has truly helped me realize that no matter how "bad" my day may seem, I still serve a God who is faithful to me, and He is still the same, so there are no bad days with God. Even if the day seems the worst ever, it could still be worse, I could be lost without hope, I could be wandering down some pointless road to nowhere...I am so thankful for my God! I could not make it through the day without Him! He is what keeps me going.

I do love teaching, it is what I have been called to do, and at the end of the day I am thankful that the Lord decided to use me to teach these students.

I hope that this encourages you to be positive and remember that there are no bad days with God! =)

The Highest Praise Quartet

This is an update on what has been going on this summer. I have had the privilege of being a part of The Highest Praise Quartet and travel several places this summer. A few months ago, in March I think, me and some college buddies (Adam, Timmy, Brooke, Hope, Leah and Amber) went out to eat for Brooke's bday. After we ate we decided to go to the college and sing. Me, Adam, Hope, Amber and Brooke were singing and having a good time, Amber had to leave but the four of us kept singing. We discovered that we had a good sound together, and we really enjoyed singing together. We sang in chapel one night, not too long after that, and everyone really liked us. We sang together every time we got together, and we had so much fun learning new songs. This summer, we have had the privilege to travel and sing a little, and we still have one more thing we are doing before the summer is over. We sang here at Broadway in May, and had a blast. A few weekends ago we traveled to Virginia Beach and helped Bro. Foxx with a teen rally. He divided the quartet up and made us team leaders, we had to come up with a team song for our team and it was a lot of fun! During the service we had the opportunity to sing, and give our testimonies. We were all sort of emotional during our testimonies, I cried a lot, and Brooke got choked up during hers. After Brooke's testimony we sang The Master's Call, this song has amazing lyrics, and it all really got to us, we had trouble singing it, and we just all connected in a different way, it made us all closer having had that experience, we could not describe the feeling we had after singing that song. The next day we sang at Faith Baptist Church in Fredericksurg. We didn't have the opportunity to give our testimonies, but Brooke shared our experience from the day before when she introduced The Master's Call, and then we had to sing that song, I really struggled during the first verse and chorus, but when we were going into the 2nd chorus, Brooke grabbed mine and Hope's hands and we just all forgot about nerves and we just sang from the bottom of our hearts, and there were several people in the church who were crying, and we had a lot of people come up to us after church and tell us how much that song blessed them. That song is so special to us, and we will never be the same after singing it together. We had the privilege to sing again at Broadway yesterday night, for the youth night of the revival. We just love singing together and are all so thankful for this opportunity to serve the Lord this way. Highest Praise Quartet, born out of a random saturday sing fest in the college chapel, has had the opportunity of a lifetime, and none of us would trade this experience for anything. Just so you can understand why The Master's Call is so special to us, here are the lyrics to the chorus: "I will follow Him, surrendering all, I will give my life, I will sacrifice for the Master's Call. No mountain is too high, no valley too low. My eyes are on the goal, my God is in control, I will give my all, for the Master's Call." We are looking forward to our last time to be together as a quartet for a while, later in August. We are all so much closer after this summer's experience and so very thankful for this wonderful privilege to use our God-given talents for Him.

*Give Thanks Always*

I have so much to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family! I am very blessed to have such a wonderful family! My parents do all they can to make sure we have the things we need! My parents have been such a great encouragement to me while I have been in college! My dad has worked extra to help pay my school bill. My mom has always been there to encourage me no matter what!! My sister and brother in law and brother are great! I am very close to my siblings and I love them so much! I have amazing friends! I don't see all of them often, but I love them all! My college buddies are helping me get through! They make things fun and interesting! My best friend who lives far away is always an encouragement to me when we talk! I am most importantly thankful for my salvation! I am very thankful that the Lord save me at a young age,and I had the privilege to be raised in a good christian home, and go to a great christian school! I can not possibly list all of the things that I am thankful for, because God has done so much for me! I want to remember today and everyday to be thankful always for all things good or bad!

God Is My Focus

Recently I realized that I am only living to please one person, I am only here for one purpose and that is to serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I knew that before but just within the past few days God has opened my eyes to that reality and I am striving to keep God first in my life. It seems like lately I have gotten off track and lost my focus. I want God to be my focus, He needs to be my number one in every area of life. I realize now that if I keep Him as my focus that everything else is going to fall right into place: school, work, friendships, relationships, finances, family, everything in my life. Most people that know me know that I am constantly talking about meeting that "special someone" and finding the right one, and I have let worrying about that consume my every thought and in the meantime God has dropped way down on my list of priorities and I have lost my focus. I forget about the most important thing of all. I spend so much time worrying, complaining and being negative that my focus has been shifted. I realize now that I need to put God first. My number 1 focus every minute of every day needs to be on Him and how I can please Him. I want God to consume my thoughts. I want to talk about all the good He has done for me instead of dwelling on the things that haven't gone the way I wanted them to. I also realize that worrying does nothing for me, but make the situation worse. I know that there is a reason for everything. And I know that my struggle with keeping God first was to teach me that I need to keep my focus on Him. I now realize that that "special someone" isn't going to come my way until I can learn to keep my focus on what is most important. These past few days I have been struggling with some things and although those things are still there and I am reminded of them often, I am going to keep my eyes on Jesus. With God as my focus everything will work out according to His plan. If you took the time to read this, Thank You! If it encouraged you, please leave a comment. =) Isaiah 26:3

God's Been Good

I complain way too often, and I have no reason to be complaining! I have had more blessings than heartaches. As I look back at just these past few years I can see how God has been so good to me. I am so blessed with such a wonderful family and so many other things God has blessed me with, but I tend to dwell on the negative and on the things I don't have and the prayers He hasn't answered the way I wanted Him to answer them. It was while listening to a song that my brother(Adam)told me to listen to that I decided to write something new on here. The following lyrics were such a huge encouragement to me and I hope they can be to you as well, this is just the chorus: "God's been good in my life, I feel blessed beyond my wildest dreams when I go to sleep each night, though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could, cause through it all, God's been good." I can't even begin to tell you all of the good He has done in my life. I feel so ashamed at how often I complain, because He has truly blessed me. It takes a reminder every now and then to realize how much He really has done for us. If you take a few minutes to look back at your life, you will as I did realize that there has been more good than bad in your life and God has truly been good to you. You have been blessed beyond your wildest dreams, and you will truly see that through it all God has been good. And then to think that it is all undeserved, we didn't do anything to deserve all this goodness, when you sit back and think about that it will truly change your life, and your perspective. We have all had hard times and we will continue to have them, but they have come into our lives for a reason, to teach us something. "God has been my Father, my Savior and my Friend, His love was my beginning and His love will be my end. I could spend forever trying to tell you everything He is, but the best way I could tell you is this: God's been good in my life, I feel so blessed beyond my wildest dreams when I go to sleep each night, and though I've had my share of hard times, I wouldn't change them if I could cause through it all, God's been good" I hope this encourages you to be thankful for all that God has done for you. Hearing that song truly changed my perspective and I am going to strive to be more thankful and not complain.

"All things are become new...." 2 Corinthinans 5:17b

Lately this verse has been on my mind a lot. I have read this verse so many times and I memorized it a long time ago.......but never had I really noticed the last 5 words of the verse.....ALL things are become new. I believe that once a person is saved ALL things will become new. Old things will pass away. In our world today we have people who are making professions of faith but aren't living a life that reflects that. I believe that there is an immediate inward change once a person is saved, but I also believe that there is an outward change as well. I understand that this may take some time, but I believe that if a person is truly saved they will strive to change and make a complete turn from their sin and start following their Savior. Part of salvation is repentance and repentance is turning away from your sin. This does not mean that you will not sin anymore and that you will be perfect, one day you will be, when you get to heaven. But if you are truly saved you are going to strive to please the Lord and you will feel very guilty and very bad when you do sin. I am no perfect and I do make mistakes and I DO SIN! But when I do I feel very upset and I have a terrible feeling every time I am doing something wrong. I am praying that I can be a better Christian, I am going to be honest with you I need to change some things in my life, and I am praying that the Lord help me in that area. I want to make a difference in this world. I want to convice others that this verse is true, all things are supposed to be made new. We need to live our lives in such a way that people are not going to be surprised to see us in heaven. We need to be a witness and be a testimony to a lost and dying world. We need to be the ones who will stand up for what is right and make a difference. If we don't who will?