Sarah's Words of Wit(sdom)

Hey everybody! Today I’m over at Annie Blogs! See what she has to say about me! I met Annie at the She Speaks writer’s conference in North Carolina. My writing mentor, Shannon Primicerio and Annie are good friends, and Shannon introduced me to her. I was fortunate enough to talk to her for a couple of minutes in between seminars. She is a hoot! Annie was kind enough to let me email her with any questions I have about blogging. So, go check out her blog ! And when you're done, come back here and head over to Real Teen Faith to read my article/interview: " A New Normal ".

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m still not fully unpacked from a weekend at the She Speaks Conference in North Carolina. Sometimes it’s a real pain. I did unpack my clothes to wash them and put my bags of toiletries in the bathroom. But it’s the little things that litter the bottom; pencils notebooks, band-aids and chapstick. Even in my toiletry bags, cotton rounds, dental floss, and toothpaste still lay inside. That made me wonder…are there little things in my “suitcase” I don’t want to get rid of that God wants me to give up to Him? I get rid of all the big stuff that everyone can see, but it’s the little stuff no one knows about that I don’t want to unpack. I zip up my suitcase and drag it behind me so no one can see the shameful little things I’m carrying with me. In Luke 14:33, Jesus tells us, “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” Everything . For me, it’s my dreams that are so hard to give up to God. I feel like if I give them up, I’ll never accomplis...

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who prayed for me while I was at She Speaks . I could feel all the prayers as I glowed with a confidence that usually stays hidden in atmospheres such as conferences. It’s going to be hard to squeeze this amazing experience into a brief blog entry, but I’ll try! Here it goes… On Thursday at 3:00 in the morning, we hopped in the mini van and, after traveling 13 hours with my family from Ohio to North Carolina, we finally arrived at the hotel where my family would stay. The next day, I headed over to Embassy Suites Concord Convention Center, where I stayed with my awesome roommates, Kaley, Emma, Eden , Rachael, and Rachel, and the coolest chaperone ever, Vern . My first Breakout Session was “Top Tips from a Veteran Publisher” with Sandy Vander Zicht. It was very informative. I learned that I need to eliminate the unnecessary words that I tend to put in to my writing. Then I joined the RadRevolution for a pajama party and watch A Walk To Rememb...

By the time you’re reading this, my family and I will be on the road in our mini-van cluttered with suitcases and “necessities” for living away from home. You know how that goes. I thought I should let you know that I won’t be posting Monday, since I will be on the road back to home. But to tell you the truth, I have mixed feelings about the She Speaks conference . This will be my first ever writer’s conference. I’m super excited, yet a little scared and nervous just because I’m not quite sure what to expect. When I first got the phone call from Proverbs31 Ministries , it seemed like the conference was forever away. Now it just snuck up on me and all of the sudden I’m heading down south for the experience of my life. I’m excited, and also a bit anxious. I have to find my way to many of my sessions on my own. What if I get lost? What if I don’t know anyone? I studied Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby with my Youth Group this summer. One of the things Mr. Blackaby said in his book is,...

My thing is fiction. It's what I write best and it's what I love. So when my mom came up with the idea that I should enter a devotion writing contest for teen girls, I wasn't so sure. The prize for this contest was a scholarship to a writer's conference in North Carolina. Conference equals a lot of people and I'm a very introverted person. So I couldn't have cared less about this idea. I also like photography. The picture you see on this post is mine. We have a garden of beans and they were just beginning to make their way through so I got out my camera and began to take pictures. As I played with the angles of my camera on the rows of beans, I spotted a tiny green stem pushing through the soil. I could just hear it grunting breathlessly as it tried to break through. "I know exactly how you feel," I whispered to the sprout. For my whole life I've been the quiet girl, trying to break though the hard, clumpy dirt. That night as I laid in bed, God in...