TESTIMONY... Of Alex Haden,

I will not go into detail about the reasons behind or the circumstances of what led me to finding GOD. The reasons behind it all and the circumstances that led to my salvation are too disturbing, too shocking and still to raw for me to talk about at this time. However, the circumstances that led me to GOD are not nearly as important as the journey I took and where that journey led me.


I had been through a tough situation. A bad divorce and the loss of a job that I loved. I felt like I had hit rock bottom. But, somehow I learned how to piece it all back together and I was stronger than ever. I was on top of the world! Everything seemed to be going my way. And I had done it all on my own without the help of anyone. At that time in my life I didn’t think that I needed anyone’s help. In reality I had never been so lost.


And then I fell into the valley. The valley of sorrow, grief, despair and self pity. It wasn’t because of anything that I had done. I mean, I wasn’t a bad guy. I worked every day. I didn’t drink and I didn’t use drugs. I was a good husband and a good father. I was reliable. I was a Deputy Warden of a prison. People who knew me would tell you, “Yeah, he’s a good guy.” But, I fell into the valley anyway. Actually I felt more like I had been pushed into the valley. Irregardless of how I got there I found myself there and I walked in that valley for eight long years. Everyday it seemed like I slipped a little further into the valley. It got worse every day. People I trusted turned on me and some simply forgot about me. Some people who supported me passed away. I lost two uncles and my Father during my time in the valley. I was devastated. At times I was without hope. At times I questioned my faith. Eventually I discovered that I was no longer walking through the valley. I was crawling through it. I started going to church hoping to make my situation better. Things only got worse because I had not yet learned that being a Christian was not about going to church every time the doors were open. Being a Christian meant that my life and my heart had to change. My relationship with God had to be my first priority. I had to give my life over to Him and let him take control of the mess that my life had become. Pastor Ronnie counseled me on so many of those dark days. I know now that God sent him to me. Pastor Ronnie told me to read about Job. I did and gained strength. I was placed on the prayer list here at Callaway and I could feel the power of those prayers. People I did not know and who did not know me would call me just to say “we love you and we are praying for you”. Those prayers and the love that I felt coming from those people gave me strength through my darkest days. However, the situation continued to worsen. I became a recluse. I was depressed. I was without hope and my faith was beginning to wane. I wasn’t even crawling through the valley anymore. I was pancaked out. FLATTENED. I was forehead to forehead with the DEVIL and he was winning. It was all too much. During the darkest day of my time in the valley, when I thought that all hope was gone, when the hardship of it all, the worry that my family lived with day after day and the ridicule that my children had been forced to endure was just too much for me to bear and I had almost decided to throw in the towel. Almost. It was on that day that the phone rang and it was Brother Mike Phillips on the other end of the line calling to tell me that he and Sharon were praying for me and my family and that they loved us. It was in that moment, that one, single, glorious moment that I found the strength to get to my feet. I shook my fist at SATAN and screamed at him that I WAS A CHILD OF THE MOST HIGH GOD AND THAT HE WOULD NEVER EVER HAVE MY SOUL. Brother Mike may not even be aware that it was that one brief phone call, that one tiny word of encouragement that GOD knew I had desperately needed to hear in that one moment of what had been my darkest day and that his simple prayer spoken so powerfully changed my life. God sent Brother Mike to me that day just like he had sent countless others before. I gave my life, all of it, every tiny shred of all that I was, both good and bad to GOD at that very moment and a peace…you know that peace that passes all understanding….came to reside in my heart and soul. I knew that GOD was with me and regardless of my situation and regardless of my circumstances that everything would be okay. Things didn’t change for me overnight but, they did begin to change. I slowly began to make my way out of that valley, that pit of hopelessness and despair. I returned to the world of the living. Soon after that day I went back to work and just recently I have been named the Warden at my prison.

My testimony is simple. GOD changes lives, he changes circumstances, he answers prayers and he walks with you through whatever valley you find yourself in. When things seem to be impossible and you find yourself walking through that valley just shake your fist at the DEVIL and tell him that you belong to THE MOST HIGH, MOST MIRACULOUS, MOST CARING AND MOST AWESOME GOD. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD.

Casting Crowns - East to West

Switchfoot your love is a song

COMING BACK TO LIFE

The Peasall Sisters

I just recently discovered these girls, although they have been around since about 2001. They are beginning to hit there stride. Two of my favorites from their new album is, "gray county line" and "logtown".They're music can be purchased from rhapsody. The following is an excerpt from their website:

Talk about growing up in public.

Over the past five years, the Peasall Sisters—Sarah, 19; Hannah, 16; and Leah, 13; have earned GRAMMY and CMA Awards for their part in the blockbuster O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie and soundtrack, and performed at such esteemed venues as Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall with the acclaimed Down From the Mountain tour, in addition to the Grand Ole Opry.

But even after all that time spent in the spotlight, the Peasalls are still all about family. They remain down-to-earth teenagers who live with their tight-knit family, including parents Michael and Sally and three younger siblings in White House, Tenn.

That atmosphere of familial warmth permeates the sisters’ second album, Home to You, which features members of two other famous families—producer John Carter Cash and guitarist Randy Scruggs—in crucial supporting roles. “It really is a family record,” says Sarah, a recent high-school graduate who is the threesome’s mother hen. “I think we all knew that, and wanted it to stay that way.”

Sure enough, if you ask the girls about their favorite music, these modern day Carter Sisters list a history of family groups spanning a century, from the Cox Family to the Carter Family to the Whites, Nickel Creek and the Dixie Chicks—not to mention the influence of their own multi-instrumentalist grandfather, Jimmy Brasher, author of Home to You’s “The Old Church Yard.”

Recorded in the rustic comfort of Cash Cabin Studio outside Nashville, where John Carter’s father Johnny Cash recorded his final masterpieces, Home to You is suffused with the warmth, security, spirituality and easy access to history offered by the presence of close relations. In fact, another family tie led to John Carter Cash’s participation: his wife, Laura, was Leah’s fiddle teacher. One day while the other girls were waiting for their sister’s lesson to end, John Carter asked if the group would sing a song to help test the home studio he was installing. He liked what he heard, and asked the Peasalls to back Emmylou Harris for a track (“On the Sea of Galilee”) on last year’s Carter Family tribute The Unbroken Circle.
Their collaboration comes to full flower on Home to You. “The whole thing went so smoothly,” says quiet, thoughtful middle sister Hannah. “We had our little bumps—for instance, it rained every day we were in the studio! But John Carter can smooth out all the bumps. He makes it very easy.”

The result captures a vocal blend—Sarah’s alto, Hannah’s soprano and Leah’s tenor—that is equal parts genetics and road-tested musicianship. “We pretty much have been singing together all of our lives,” says Hannah. The sisters first performed onstage at a church service while visiting their father’s parents at a retirement home in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. At the time, Sarah was 10, Hannah was 7 and Leah was 5. “I remember we had ice cream afterwards,” says Sarah.

The thrill of entertaining an audience took hold—or maybe it was the ice cream—and the girls kept it up. “We started performing in churches and nursing homes,” recalls Hannah. The group used to be called Precious, because that’s what all the little old ladies in the nursing homes would say—‘Oh, they’re so precious!’”

In 1999, they auditioned for parts in the Coen brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Although the filmmakers decided they didn’t look “pitiful enough” to play Depression-era characters onscreen, their voices were heard in the movie, and their career took flight.

Although they already have plenty of fans, Home to You marks a big step forward in the Peasalls’ confidence and maturity. “I used to hate session work, because you have to stand still for so long,” says Leah, the acknowledged tomboy of the family. “Now, it just kind of comes naturally.”
Another new development in their recording career is the inclusion, for the first time, of Peasall originals. The album kicks off with Sarah’s title cut, inspired by a family friend’s conversion to Christianity. For “Gray County Line,” Sarah put words to Leah’s music, cribbing the title from a sign she saw on a roadside in Arkansas.

But perhaps closest to the girls’ hearts is “Logtown,” written by Sarah and mother Sally, whose side of the family hails from the Gulf Coast town of Logtown, MS. Established in the 1800s, the town practically disappeared from the map in the 1960s after NASA took over the area for missile testing. “To this day, there’s nothing there except the cemetery where all our family is buried and the gravel road that leads down to the Pearl River,” says Sarah. “It’s a haunting and sad story, but at the same time it’s kind of a happy thing—they sacrificed so that America could go forth with the space race.”

For Home to You’s other tracks, the girls turned to tunes taught them by grandfather Jimmy (who the girls call “G.G.”) and suggestions from producer Cash. The sprightly “Rushing Around” and “Freight Train Blues” are best known in Roy Acuff’s renditions; “I Never Will Marry” is a Carter Family number; and “Fair and Tender Ladies,” “The Old Account” and “Carrick Fergus” are traditional songs.

The a capella closing number, “Where No One Stands Alone,” is a decades-old gospel number that re-emphasizes this devout Baptist family’s commitment to spreading the good word—as do several other tracks. “To us, it’s not just having religion,” says Sarah. “It’s having a relationship and living a lifestyle. I don’t think it’s something we have to think about. It’s who we are.”

You’ll hear that and much more of who the Peasall Sisters are on Home to You, in all their effervescent spirit and glorious complexity. These are teenagers with nearly a decade of musical experience; thoroughly modern kids completely at home with songs many times older than themselves; three individuals with distinct personalities who slide together in instinctual, natural harmony.
Add it all together, and it sounds like home.

FAN MAIL
The Peasall Sisters
P.O. Box 1304
White House, TN 37188

BOOKING
Third Coast
Steve Hoiberg
(615) 297-2021
Send email

MANAGEMENT
Van Alan Productions & Mgmt.
(615) 297-2021
Send email

WE WON!!

The Winners of the Proflowers Valentine’s Day Giveaway

If you're new to The Art of Manliness, you may want to sign up for a daily dose of manliness either by email or by RSS. You may also want to check out our free e-book on how to be a gentleman in 2008. Thanks for visiting and don't forget to man up!

A big thanks to all those who participated in the Proflowers Valentine’s Day Giveaway. Reading through your date ideas and experiences was downright touching; I am thoroughly impressed with the creativity, devotion, and selflessness of AoM’s readers. Anyone who thinks romance is dead and that gentlemen are extinct should take the time to read through all the comments. Your cynicism will evaporate.

From all the entries, we randomly chose 5 winners. Each winner will receive a $70 gift certificate redeemable on flowers and gifts available from Proflowers.com. The winners are:

• Brian Winters Tuscaloosa, AL
• Jason Summers Sicklerville, NJ
• Larry Little Arkansas
• Alex Haden Pine Mountain, GA
• Joshua Smith Barrington, IL

Congratulations gents! Your significant other will be surely be happy come V-Day.

Thanks to:
http://artofmanliness.com

awesome website. Thanks also to Proflowers.
The flowers were sent to my mother-in-law, by my wife's request. The image to the right represents the "Purely Spectacular"(available at Proflowers.com) flowers that were sent.

Timeless Wisdom

"When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself."

- Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief