"God Was With Us"

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There's nothing like a bond Born out of tragedy No one could understand Except you & me Thankful for no regret Led by our instincts And now we're here today Each one a blessing CHORUS When the smoke clears And you catch your breath The shock dissipates And you find there's nothing left All your memories Turn to ash and dust We just had to trust God was with us A path can disappear Right underneath your feet Every step a test of faith Each day our hearts beat When a shattered dream Is built back piece by piece It never fits the same Gaps left in between CHORUS We can't erase the past Go back to what we had ‘Cuz things don't last No matter where we go We're not in this alone We're not in this alone CHORUS

Written by Misha Williams, Alice Lankford & Jimbo Martin © 2015 by Velvet Vine Publishing (BMI) & Happy Planet Publishing (ASCAP) BEHIND THE SONG: This song is for anyone who has ever had a close call, experienced a miracle of survival, when angels were watching over you. The picture above was inspired by a true story of the 3 songwriters of this song. We were in this building one evening in the Spring of 2015 writing a song when we realized the building was on fire. Alice & Jimbo's publisher's office was located in "the big red barn" on Music Row in Nashville, TN, and we often had evening writing sessions there before the building burned down. It was a pretty iconic looking and noticeable building that housed several offices and stores, and our writer room was on the 2nd floor on the back left side of this building. We began that evening writing as usual, and maybe an hour into our session, we all kind of noticed a slight burning smell. Alice noticed it first and has a keen sense of smell for this type of thing, and thank God she trusted her gut and said something out loud to us. I thought it smelled like a heater burning, but it wasn't very cold outside, so it didn't seem reasonable that the heater would be on. Jimbo opened the door, which led straight to the outside of the building, and he saw smoke flood around the side of the building. He leaned back inside and yelled, "The building's on fire! We've got to get out of here!" For a split second, I thought it was a joke. Those are not the words you expect to hear. My heart started racing, and I had my guitar and notebooks all out so I just instinctively shoved my guitar in its case, threw my stuff in my bag, picked them up and ran out the door. Alice grabbed a guitar hanging off the wall, and we got out of there. As soon as I went outside, thick black smoke came blowing around us, and I looked down and could only see my feet on the wooden balcony floor we were on, nothing in front of me. There was a metal staircase on the backside of the building, and fortunately, the fire was closer to the front side of the building at the time. We all got downstairs, and we heard fire engine sirens in the distance. Alice yelled "move your cars!" so I threw my stuff in my trunk and moved my car to the parking lot across the street. By the time I got out of my car, firefighters were on the scene, and I watched them bravely climb up the staircase I had just come down, and up to the attic to break through the attic door, where it looked like the fire might have started. Another firefighter broke down the door on the first floor to make sure the lower floor was clear. It had probably only been about 2 or 3 minutes since we got out of there at this point, and the whole top floor was pretty much engulfed in flames at that point. I remember thinking that "at least it wasn't a super close call," when I first looked at the building when I got out, until I saw it only minutes later, in the state of the photo above. This song was inspired by this event, written only a few doors down from the location of this building in the publishers' new office building. While writing this song, we could see the remains of the old building from the window. I truly believe God was with us that evening, and I am thankful that no one was seriously hurt during this experience. God is good.