ACFW: Mission Accomplished
What a wonderful ride! It’s so hard to put into words this year’s ACFW experience, but if I had to choose one word, for me it would be emotional! My second word would be peace!
From laughter to tears, from education to building relationships, ACFW Dallas had it all.
Worship was incredible. The spirit of our living and loving God fell in big doses on me, every time! I don’t know why I even bothered putting on eye makeup because it was all cried off after every worship service and some writing sessions as well thanks to Mary E. DeMuth’s class on Writing from the Inside Out.
I had never heard Liz Curtis Higgs speak before, and now I won’t be able to forget her spirit. Though her words may get lost in my memory, her enthusiasm, humor, spirit, testimony and love for the Lord will be etched in my heart.
I was also blessed to meet our very own Writer…Interrupted members and bloggers. I’ll be posting photos later with all the new friends I made.
There was exciting news for some of our members as well. Tricia Goyer won the Book of the Year award in the Historical category and Cara Putman (my crit partner) was awarded her very first contract right in front of the entire 400 attendees! She’ll be posting on her experience soon, so I’ll let her fill you in on the details.
The morning sessions brought me a much need refreshing in my spirit and confirmation of my writing journey. I will be going into this more in depth on my blog, but will share that throughout my writing journey I had elevated the craft of writing above my calling to write and somewhere along the way lost my voice by putting too much emphasis on publication. On the last day, God gave me a sweet reminder. Unless He builds the house, he who labors, labors in vain!
So friends, writers, busy people. Know that God has a plan and purpose for your writing lives, and though He wants you to learn and develop your gift, He doesn’t want you to take your eyes off of Him.
Happy writing! Happy serving! Happy living!
For conference photos go here. But be warned, my tired mug shows up in almost all the photos and it’s not always a pretty site!
Gina Conroy is a homeschooling writing mom of four and founder of Writer…Interrupted blog and webring. For more musings by this author visit Portrait of a Writer…Interrupted.
