Featured God's Daughter ~ Sarah H.

Okay, so...I've decided not to do this every month.  OBVIOUSLY, I'm not very good at keeping up with that. :P  So...I'm just going to do it whenever I have an interview handy to share ;)

This certain interview is very late in getting out.  My dear friend, Sarah, is just SO patient with me!! *HUGS*  Love you, dear!

Sarah H.

http://daughteroftheking89.blogspot.com

Miss Raquel: Please introduce you and your family to my readers.

Sarah: Hi, everyone. My name is Sarah, and I am a 21 year old young woman, who is striving daily to find her purpose in life. I struggle, I fall and then I stand up once again, but I am beginning to find my way as a young adult, and it is only because I am being lead by my Creator that I am able to stand steadfast in His presence daily. I am so very thankful to be considered, and loved, as a daughter of the most high King. I am a daughter, sister, friend, the love of a wonderful young man, a piano teacher, preschool teacher, pianist, poet, writer of mere whimsical and random thoughts, as well as the seeker of beauty that is seen and heard in every day moments of simplicity.

I still live at home, in a small mountain foothills town, where you can hear the train go by at night accompanied by the noises of our local steer mooing alongside our very vocal wildlife. My family consists of my dad (Mark), momma (Franziska), my younger sister (Mary) and my *white maned lioness*bichon frise, named Abby. My dad works outside of our Home, while my mother has been blessed to have been able to stay at Home with my sister and I for quite some time now. The majority of my school experience was spent as a Home-schooler. Truly I loved being at Home and being taught by my lovely momma, and the occasional tutor and co-op class teacher. (I graduated from Home in May of 2007.)

I really enjoyed growing up in the church, and also being a Home-schooled kid. I wouldn't have wanted my schooling process to have gone any other way...because I was schooled at Home my heart was constantly taught by my parents to be purposed for God, my future family, my future children and the future Home that I will serve and maintain one day. I learned fairly early on to be a self-taught learner of many useful subjects, not limited to schoolwork materials only, many different activities and helpful hobbies. I was very much so an avid reader from a very early age...on occasion I would sit down and conjure up a daydream or two. I was a young girl who for the most part liked to keep to herself, one who did not have an abundant amount of friends. My books took me places that I could have never imagined I could travel to...they replaced friends for a while...that is until I let the love of my life, my best endless friend, Jesus Christ.

My story is not finished yet....now I am just along for the ride, with heart opened, the world abandoned and my mind opened wide to all of the future possibilities. Thank goodness that I no longer have to worry how I am going to make it through life, when I know that God will lead me...never astray.


Miss Raquel: Your blog has been a great encouragement, not only to me, but to other girls. Could you please tell us a little about your blog. When and why did you start it? What do you hope to accomplish with it?

Sarah: Thank you so much, that is such a sweet thing for you to say! I only pray that what you've just said is indeed true...for it is my intention to be of great encouragement...in my life...so much so that hopefully it pours out through me and into the life of every one I come into contact with during my daily walk, whether that be through my little blog or through my actual face-to-face encounters with God's children.

I started my blog, Daughter of the King, in July of 2009. A dear friend of mine, Lyn, is really the one who got me into blogging in the first place. Lyn knew just how much I loved to write, but at the time that she had suggested that I start a thing called a "blog" I was not so sure of myself, my newfound "outlet" and recently discovered gift of writing and entwining words together to express myself and my heart to everyone. At first my blog was just an experiment...really more of a diary to ease my aching mind and heart...and to share what happiness was found in my days in my new home-town. After quite a few months the real shift happened on my blog. Slowly I began to gain more lovely followers, and it really was an encouragement to me to find out that there were other like-minded Christian people out in the world that identified with me and how I see the world.

My intent now for my blog is that I will be seen as an inspiration, not because of all of the things I say, do, or post about that make me me, but because you glimpse God working within my life and can hopefully learn from Him, or identify with me along the way.

I love to write about a myriad of different themes and topics on my blog. My blog is simply put, me and God on e-paper. As a blogger I guess my postings are quite all over the map, but well, isn't God kind of over everything, and proverbially all over the map too? I love to write about my faith, hope, love, random thoughts, inspiration, epiphanies that have been brought to my attention, modesty, photography, the not so comfortable tougher topics, my poetry, movie and music reviews...etc.

Miss Raquel: Your articles and day-to-day posts on your blog AND Facebook really show your devotion and love for the Lord. Can you tell us a little about your walk with Him? When did you receive Him as your Savior?

Sarah: Showing the world my devotion to Him is my aim in life. My walk with Him has always been a unique one. I tend to hear Him speak to me in different ways, and in certain sights that not many others glimpse or hear Him in. I've never heard His voice roaring in my ears, but He has always come to me and spoken at just the right moments to let me know that He is indeed there...albeit in quiet whispers and in visages of beauty and daily inspiration that is glimpsed. I can feel Him around me daily, and I know that I am never alone.

I grew up in the church (I've been to the Methodist, Baptist and Non-denominational churches) knowing about God and His son Jesus who died on the cross for me...and I accepted Him into my life very early on, and was baptized soon after (around age 7 or 8, I think) but I never really knew the full extent of who the trinity was, or even came to the realization that I could have an actual *personal relationship* with God until I was about 14 years old.

I began to go to a group called *Virtue Girls *(in 2003 I believe), which was hosted and taught by an older home-schooled girl, named Fallon, from our church. It is there, in that group, where I really began to glimpse Him at work in my heart and in my life. At the time I was struggling with being the outsider, not having many friends but wanting to have a bunch of friends and seeing myself as the ugly-duckling...but little did I know that not only would God open up my eyes to the realization that I was truly a creation of beauty, but also that I was also going to begin to break down all of the doors that barred me from having a personal relationship with Him.
It was the year that I was 14 that God became the most important thing to me...having purpose and knowing that true beauty lay within my human shell excited and fascinated me. I haven't looked back since that year, so very long ago...in fact I've only grown into a stronger young Christian woman than ever before because He found me and pulled me out of myself created
mire.

Miss Raquel: Besides writing, can you share with us some of your favorite pastimes?
Sarah: I love playing the piano whenever I get a free quiet moment to do so. I've been playing the piano for around 15 years now; and I am also a piano teacher. I am in love with music and musical instruments of all sorts, even though I only play piano and sing on occasion myself...piano, violin, acoustic guitar, harp, cello, mandolin...and voice...music is that which makes my heart and soul slow down and race all at the same time. My other interests include scrapbooking, quilting, cooking, hiking, re-organizing my room, alphabetizing everything, collecting dvds, watching BBC period piece dramas, and of course reading oodles of books.

Miss Raquel: Can you tell us a little bit about your 'knight?' You mention that you and he are courting...

Sarah: I'd love to! Jared and I first met a little over a year ago at a Christian Summer camp, in July of 2009. The funny thing is is that neither of us wanted to go to this camp, both of us for very different reasons. We both felt pressured for some unknown reason to go we both went along with our separate church groups, as chaperones for our youth groups. I was just beginning to come out of my shell...let's just say that I really didn't talk to any young men very much at all before going to Summer camp. I saw Jared, and I just knew that he was very different from any other young man that I knew, or that was also at the camp. On the last day of camp our college-age bible study group met together for the last time...and I made my move. I decided to sit myself to Jared's right side...and after we finished up our devotions it was time to say goodbye, but before I left I asked Jared if I could have his e-mail address, and then if I could take a picture with him.

Needless to say, as soon as I got back home from camp I got on the computer, and sent an e-mail to him. We talked back and forth for about 4 months before I finally burst and just told him that I "like liked him," very clever huh! ;-)

Our Courtship is so very special to the both of us. Both Jared and I strive our best in our relationship to protect one another and both of our hearts. We know that in Courtship we are not just having a *casual fling,* but instead are seeking to find out if it is right for us to pledge ourselves to one another, in marriage, in the future. As far as guidelines go, within the first few weeks of "us" being official Jared talked to me about our boundary lines...boy oh boy was I impressed that he lead the conversation on this...it was awkward, but a relationship without guidelines is like trying to hit a target that is 100 feet away with an arrow in the pitch dark blackness of night.

I think the most important things in a Courtship is that you place God before your love, protect one another's hearts to the utmost of your ability, that you set guidelines up front, and that you realize that fling's are damaging, and if you have no intent upon marriage then you really shouldn't be dating/courting.

As of the second week of November, Jared and I have been together in our Courtship for a year...and honestly I couldn't be happier...okay well, I could, but all things will come in due time...in the Lord's season. =)

Miss Raquel: Looking to the future, what are some things that you can see yourself doing...or that you hope to do, if God would allow it?
Sarah: The first few things that come to mind is that I, more than anything in the whole wide world, want to be a wife, mother and a piano teacher from my own Home one day. Those things are what my idealist's heart dreams of doing. Alongside those things I would love to work in the youth or young women's ministry of some sort one day. Speaking to young girls on subjects of all kinds is what I long to do in some way, shape or form one day, God-willing.

Miss Raquel: And in closing, could you share with us if there was ONE thing that you could tell every girl in the world, what would you say?

Sarah: You are BEAUTIFUL, regardless of how you may see yourself, because you have been made and knit together in the precious image of our loving Creator.

Thank you SO much, Sarah!!

Love ya, girl!

Readers - I hope you enjoyed reading Sarah's interview...isn't she such a sweet and special young woman?

Be sure to visit her blog, comment and/or follow!  I know she'd appreciate more followers ;)