A First Time For Everything

This week I had the opportunity to minister to a sweet group of ladies in Camden, AL. Their annual event called "A Day In Spring" took place on Thursday and I was asked to come as the guest singer/speaker for the event. I shared my testimony of being a mother of a child with special needs and how faithful God has been to our family. To conclude my speaking session with the ladies, I sang my video song about Victoria ("She Is God's Child"). For a while now I've really wanted Elyssa (Victoria's older sister) to sing the first verse and chorus of the song with me. When I wrote the song, it was always my intention for Victoria's sisters to eventually sing the song with me in that way. Well, Thursday was the very first time that Elyssa sang the song with me in a public setting and it was absolutely precious. As a matter of fact, most of the women were already crying by the time Elyssa finished the first chorus of the song. It was so special for me to share this experience with Elyssa. I look forward to her doing this more with me in the future! And, Natalie (my middle daughter) is already asking when she'll be able to sing with us! So, she'll probably be up there with Elyssa soon singing right along!

I feel so privileged to share the gift of music with ALL of my daughters! And, not only am I able to share the gift of music with them ... I'm sharing the truth of God's love and faithfulness with them at the same time!

PS - I'm including a video of Elyssa singing her portion of "She Is God's Child" from the sound check we had on Thursday morning so you can hear how great she did!

It's A Small World

On our recent visit to Disney's Magic Kingdom we, of course, had to visit the It's A Small World ride! We had two of our three little girls with us, so we actually had to ride it twice! The first time we rode the ride, the girls were enamored with it. It was one of their favorite rides and it was one of the first rides they actually rode upon us entering the Magic Kingdom for the day.

Mark and I will never forget the couple of comments our oldest little girl (5 1/2 years) made while on that ride. Here are her comments:

Elyssa's First Comment:

"The people are singing and so happy because they are celebrating Jesus' birth!"

Elyssa's Second Comment:

(The girls saw all of the coins people had tossed into the water on the ride and wanted to toss in a penny each and make a wish.)

"My wish was that Jesus would be my Lord and Savior forever and ever!"

Elyssa's Third Comment:

"Natalie's wish was that she would be a mermaid."

Elyssa's Fourth Comment:

"Natalie's wish won't come true, but my wish WILL come true!"

We had a good laugh over the mermaid comment! But, you know ... we are amazed sometimes at the spiritual things our children say. It is in those moments that we realize ... they really do glean things from church and hopefully, from Mark and me.

Ministering With Family

This past weekend Mark and I had the priviledge of ministering at my brother's church (First Baptist Church of Mount Dora) in Florida. Mark was the guest speaker at their Disciple Now and I helped my brother, Alan, with the worship music for the event. We had a great time being with their church family.

Alan also asked me to share my testimony and several songs with the church family in the worship service on Sunday morning. The people there were such a blessing to us.

We left a few days before the weekend events we had planned at the church so we could enjoy some time with Elyssa and Natalie at a few of the Disney parks. It was their first time to visit the parks and we all had a wonderful time! My parents were gracious enough to keep Victoria for us while we were out of town. We knew it would be such a busy week and weekend. It would've really tired Victoria out.

God moved in a powerful way this weekend and we felt so blessed to be able to minister with my brother and his family!