Silver Linings

I heard a story today in church that pretty much sums up the thoughts I have been having lately. The story was about a girl flying back from a mission trip in Africa. She sat next to a man and they began to talk. She asked him what his trip had been for a mistakenly thought he said a worship conference. She was so delighted that she began to share in her interest of the Lord, only to realize he had been there for a business conference and had never heard of the things she was telling him about. His jaw dropping as she told him that she had spent her time there healing the sick, prophesying to all, and worshiping Jesus her Savior. He asked to know more and so she gave him her Bible and he read for hours on the flight back. When they arrived home he said that he wanted to prophecy as well. She said of course, but first you must have a relationship with Christ. He eagerly agreed and she prayed not only for his salvation, but for the gift of prophecy and for the anointing of the Holy Spirit!

As you can guess this touched my heart and every persons in the congregation. Something that it also made me realize is that this wonderful event came from a mistake. The girl misunderstood the man and this lead to his conversion. So many times in life I feel like a mistake, an accident, or something done wrong can lead to a beautiful outcome and discovery.

For example this weekend I accidentally out my cell phone in the washer with my clothes. I was so mad at myself and couldn't believe how dumb it was of me to have wasted a perfectly good phone by not paying attention. It hasn't even been over 24 hours and I have realized God allowed my to make that mistake for a reason. He wanted more time with me. I never have noticed how much time I spend on my phone and how much I depend on it. Driving from place to place I call family and friends, I use it for music when exercising, and constantly text, email, fb message, and call people from it. As I walked around feeling like I was missing a limb I began to notice things. In the car I listened to KLove and began to pray. Then today I went for a run and instead of hearing music through my earphones, I heard the creek trickling by, the birds chirping, the wind blowing, and squirrels scampering past. I felt like I could here God saying Ashlee I wanted you to see what you've been missing. I began to pray again telling the Lord how overwhelmingly beautiful he creation of nature was and how thankful I was for this new vision. I then went to church with no desire to check my phone of the time or to text. It was so revealing.

Now I know this mistake wasn't huge, but I hope it is a small example of how God, in His infinite power, can bring good out of any situation. No matter what has happened to you or how bad it seems, look for the light and it will overwhelm you with love and compassion. For His grace is sufficient.

Sunny days

Aren't these beautiful sunny days were having amazing??! I am just loving sitting outside and soaking up the suns rays and vitamins. It's amazing how it can make you feel happier and give you more energy after you've laid out in the sun. Something I heard recently I want to share with you is related to this. I realize that when the suns out I feel so much better and I know it's there because I can see it, feel it, and experience it, but what about when it's behind a cloud or its nighttime. Does that mean its not there anymore or it's left? No, that's a silly question obviously right? But then why is it that when I go through a hard time or a difficult point in my life that I feel like God has distanced himself from me or he is not there anymore? The truth is that the clouds are no indicator that the sun is there or not just as much as when the storms of this life come and we wonder if God is there. He is always with us and he cares about every detail of our lives. He counted and put the number of hairs on our heads! So hold on to that as I will next time it rains and the sun is out of sight. I love you all and pray this encourages mad brighten your day!

From the dirt comes flowers

I am so excited to begin my first blog post as an artist! I hope to post once a week with updates about my progress as an artist and experiences as one. This weekend I traveled to Ohio with my friend Tori Harris, another artist that I am currently singing bgvs for. It was an amazing experience to have such sweet hosts to stay with. The trip was for a battle of the bands at Franciscan University in which we sang as featured artists. The crowd had been great the entire night, but when we began they all tuned in and we have their undivided attention! By the way this was at midnight, the first time I've ever performed that late! Afterwards I had so many sweet people come up and ask about my ministry. I was lucky enough to share some of my testimony! Now after 20 hours on the road with the sweetest girls I know I gave a presentation this morning in class about my development as an artist. As a visual person I wanted to give my audience something tangible. After much thought our sweet host from Ohio gave me the idea of flowers. And so I handed out flowers to my class. You could tell they seemed confused why when everyone else began with a song, I handed out flowers. My purpose was to give them the deeper meaning of where the beautiful, living flowers came from. They came from decomposed, dead dirt, made of ashes. And through my ministry I hope that when you see a flower of hear one of my songs, or when something in your life is painful, that you will remember that that flower came from something completely different from itself. No matter what your going through, a breakup, girl drama, sickness, death, or anything that this life can throw at us, remember that the beautiful flowers come from dirty ashes. I love you guys!