Doing Hard Things

We are all on a sort of spiritual high around here these days. In the past ten days we have seen three conversions of those close to us and some of us attended a very encouraging conference. On the conversions: one of which was Sarah; one was a 16 year old I had been praying for for a couple of years and who is a friend of Hannah's; and another was a 18 year old young man in our church. As I watch Sarah grow in her faith, I pray that God will turn her quiet spirit into an appropriate boldness for Him. It is so encouraging to see the fruit of prayers come to pass. Though we know these are mountaintop experiences and that God will bring us through valleys also, we are encouraged. The conference we attended was called "Do Hard Things" put on by The Rebelution. It is geared toward young people and challenging them to step out of the low expectations society has put on them and to rise up and do the hard things that God has called them to do. The girls seem to be affected by the messages and are trying to put into practice principles they learned. Teenagers are often overlooked as too immature to be truly productive. As we train our children we need to give them responsibilities and hold them accountable to fulfill those tasks.

A note on how good God is to us: Sarah has a few friends that our not in our family, one in Florida and another in Knoxville, TN. As we were walking into the conference building, I saw a car that looked familiar and commented. The girls agreed, then you could feel their excitement. It was our friends, the Carr's, from Knoxville. Neither of us knew our families were planning to be there and we were thrilled for Sarah and their daughter Rachael to spend the day together. Pictured above is Hannah and Sarah with the conference speakers, Alex and Brett Harris and Sarah with Rachael Carr.