God's Greatest Gifts Don't End After the Conference...

You know ten things I love?

The Alley Cats. While not all of us could be in attendance at the ACFW conference this year, I think in a way of those absent, a bit of their hearts were present on Friday night as we lay on our hotel room beds and laughed, laughed, laughed.

You know one thing I'm always continually amazed about attending these conferences? Yes, we come to learn and pitch and rub shoulders with some of today's best in Christian publishing, but it's the relationships that inspire me.

It's the people who I have no clue who they are, walk up to me and say "I know you!" and I'm not a bit freaked out. (much ;-) It's the people that love you no matter how much your eyes leak on Sunday because you don't want to say good-bye.

It's the people that stand by you through thick and thin no matter if you're celebrating the fantastic news of a brand new agent or upset because your appointment didn't go quite right.

Sure making a connection is great, but you know what has blessed me more than anything else? You know the people who have bent over backwards to introduce me to their agent or give me writing advice or tell me to email them for any help I might need...? They are the ones who have gone out of their way for no other reason then the goodness of their heart. They don't have to help me, but they do. Without question, without barter, they just do. 

So often we go to these conferences with one agenda in mind: land that awesome agent who will make all my dreams come true in this publishing world.

Reality: this publishing world is on an ever shifting playing field. Nothing is ever certain sure for long, including the agent you have or the contract you've signed.

 What doesn't change? The friends we make who become brothers and sisters at the heart level. Sure, it's good to make those connections, don't get me wrong. I made a fabulous one myself this year...but it's not near as important to me as hugging and chatting and laughing with friends who have become ever so dear.

It's dropping your bag at a booth and helping set up an empty table even if it might put you five minutes late to your class. It's skipping out on a planned lecture to sit down with another struggling writer, taking her hands in yours and praying for God's perfect peace with her writing.

It's submitting to God's perfect timing and letting Him put you exactly where He wants you at the perfect time. You never know when that volunteer slot you signed up for, might be the perfect opportunity to make a new and life long friend.

God's biggest blessings to me this year weren't the classes I took or all the notes I brought home, though they were awesome and will prove helpful...it was the people I met. Seeing a dear friend's little Africa baby for the first time and choking back tears. It's squeezing the neck of an excited friend after she won the Carol award. Wagging my "I-told-you-so" finger in her face. It's laughing and praying with my precious Alley Cats.

I don't care what people say about this industry, how it's constantly fluctuating. How you can't make any money and nothing is certain...I still think it's the best place to make the best of friends.

So let's talk...what's one way God blessed you this year at the conference? And if you couldn't attend, what's one way God blessed your writing and heart during that week?


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Casey Herringshaw is a homeschool graduate and has been writing since high school. She lives in rural Eastern Oregon in a town more densely populated with cows than people.