Might be a quickie, might be a longie...

I intend for a quickie, but we all know my tendency toward verbosity. :)

So this morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn, way earlier than God intended for any sane person to be awake. But I was doing the obedient thing, which meant that when I volunteered to help out HOWEVER I could, I had to answer the call to man the registration table at 7 am. I was greeted by a beautiful mountain scene, and had I remembered to bring my transfer thingy with me, I'd have posted the pic.

Went to breakfast, ate with one of my fellow volunteers, who is a really nice lady, lives near me, and we really hit it off. Then, we went to the table, and yes, yours truly, Queen of all Introverts, was in extrovert mode, friendly and helpful to all strangers who appeared.

Then, I went in to morning worship. It is so amazing how we differ in "worship". They sang songs I knew, but more to a traditional "churchy" beat (I am so used to ROCKING the house), and like most "churchy" songs, the key was too high and I don't know enough about music to lower it to something more comfortable. I really must invest in singing lessons. The thing I really appreciated about the worship time is that we'd pray, sing a song, pray some more, hear someone talk, sing some more, pray some more, listen some more, pray some more, etc... I love that everything was punctuated with prayer.

Sooo... then we had our first continuing session. Mine is about writing nonfiction that impacts lives. Freaking amazing. What I love is that even though he has promised to get to nuts and bolts, where does he start, but with God, Scripture, and the whole Godly purpose thing. God reminded me of my real fear in writing The Book, and gave me His assurance that as long as my eyes are on Him, we're good. :)

Then, we did lunch. I sat with a girl who was a beginning writer. Yes, introvert me actually sought out someone sitting by herself and *gasp* struck up a conversation. She was totally sweet, and I fell in love with her heart.

I chose to skip the sessions immediately after lunch and head into town to buy my pretzels. We were not going to have another night like last night, that's for sure. I did a little shopping, made a few calls, since I have no cell reception here, and came back in time to take a nap before the next workshop on editing. It was pretty good, learned a few nuggets, then went back to man registration until time for the next continuing session.

Final continuing session... OH MY. Not only did God cut me to the quick on some things and really test my heart and motives, but GET THIS... He FINALLY told me what I'm supposed to REALLY do on the book. And, oh is it good... I have a basic plan in the old noggin, and this evening as I bathed to the sweet sounds of Todd Agnew, a key chapter came to me and it is now written.

Then, we had dinner. I sat with some of the ladies from my continuing session, and oh, what a blessing. Such interesting, amazing women, and what got me was that as alone as I have felt on certain issues, was that they were all in agreement with me. I started telling them about my call, and I started to cut myself off, but one of them made me keep telling it because she felt that God needed her to hear it. That alone made this worth it.

After dinner, I chose to skip worship and head in for quiet time and to chat with That Man. While I was waiting for him to come online, I chatted with some folks, checked the boards, did email, and dealt with some pride issues. Because of course, now that God has said, "give this up," I'm watching others get closer to the prize that I've wanted for so long. Anyway, I did catch a gorgeous sunset with some elk grazing right outside my window. Don't you just love the amazing things God made?

Went downstairs and caught the trail end of some authors and agents chatting-did not realize who they were AT ALL, until much later, and the one I now know to be an agent wanted to hear my story. Do you know how hard it is to admit to other Christians that you've fought the call for ten years because you don't like other Christians? Yeah. Well, chalk one up for the God Squad, because He had his hand on me, and no one took offense, and they (including a certain favorite author of a certain friend of mine) understood where I was coming from and seemed to agree with me. Okay, so not everyone is going to stone me for the message. I can breathe now.

Returned to my room, armed with Earl Grey (Decaf, of course), took a bath, read some Phillip Yancey, put on some Todd Agnew, and chilled. Then God did His "Hello, Danica" thing, and I got out to write this chapter. It's a whole new way of looking at the cross, that's for sure. At least for me.

Anyway, off to dreamland... another early morning for me, I'm afraid, so I'll be looking at tomorrow's schedule to see where I can find some time for another nap.