From The Stage to The Page, Wendy Speake Offers Praise

Before Wendy Speake became a bestselling author of seven books that have led hundreds of thousands of women to God, she was a little girl in Los Angeles, sitting at her grandparents’ table and reading Our Daily Bread. Although born into a family of believers, Wendy’s home wasn’t a place where Bible study took place around the kitchen table. Yet she had a deep hunger for God’s word, something she believes was planted in her at birth. “I feel like God gave me, in my heart, faith,” she said. “I can see the things I've done, the things others have done, to sow into me a life of faith.”

“My faith is so sincere that I feel like I’m just catching up to what God already put in my heart from a very young age,” said Wendy. “So, I started writing in the margins of my Bible and underlining and highlighting, probably when I was about 12 years old. Not because someone told me to; I was digging in because I wanted to know God, and I felt his incredible faithfulness to me.”

Growing up in the Los Angeles area, Wendy was always captivated by the arts and a natural storyteller. She loved beauty and poetry and, as a child, was drawn to the Psalms as she read her Bible. She remembers being nine or ten years old, walking with her best friend past a performance of the musical “Leader of the Pack” at Disneyland, when a man roared out on a motorcycle. “I remember thinking in that moment that’s what I’m going to do when I grow up.”

That pull toward storytelling carried her through the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and eventually to Emerson College in Boston, where she studied acting with a coach she admired. There, at eighteen or nineteen, unsure whether to stay in Boston or go home, she was sick and homesick in her dorm bathroom, the humidifier running, when she prayed the prayer that would define the rest of her life.

“I was seeking God for His will in that, and He gave me the clearest call I’ve had in my entire life,” said Wendy. “He said, keep pursuing me, keep leading other people in the Word, inviting them to know me. And the third was to keep honing my craft as a communicator. He didn’t give me a blueprint; He just gave those three directives.”

Wendy went on to work professionally as an actress, appearing in television shows such as JAG, Melrose Place, and Star Trek: Voyager. But the transition from the “stage to the page” happened gradually as she continued to serve at her local church, emceeing events and occasionally speaking. Then, at 36, 18 years after that first encounter with God in her dorm room, she had an epiphany. 

“I realized I’m doing it,” said Wendy. “I’m not putting on a song-and-dance; we’re not doing ‘Leader of the Pack.’ But God is allowing me to lead that group. It naturally started developing, and then I dove deeper, asking God, ‘What’s this supposed to look like?’ Then I started doing more Bible teaching that would allow me to use storytelling to invite people into faith with God.”

Her first book, Triggers, grew out of that season of leading women. As Wendy continued to speak and pour into women, especially moms, she started a blog and wrote during her kids’ nap time. She was still finding her voice on the page when she began writing about parenting. That led to invitations from other websites and blogs to serve as a guest author. A friend who started a Facebook group for parents struggling with anger invited her to join, where tens of thousands of women gathered.

“I had a peaceful home environment, but when I had my third child, it was as if something inside me broke, and I couldn’t keep the crud inside,” said Wendy. “I decided to approach the topic from a different perspective, and one morning in that group I asked, ‘What are your triggers? What sets you off?’ Thousands of people responded. The next day, Amber, my friend, said, ‘Let’s take it. What does God’s Word have to say? How would He parent in this circumstance?’ Thousands of women responded. That’s where the impact was.”

Wendy not only identified the needs of the women in the group but also shared her secret sauce for writing: “As Henry Blackaby wrote in his book Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, ‘Find where God’s at work and join Him there.’ Also, are you actually writing? If you want to be a writer who has impact, you have to write. Just find out where the impact is, develop your skill, hire someone to edit your work, and put it out there, and start.”

That was the beginning. Wendy and Amber self-published the book Triggers, and now, more than a decade later, Wendy is sharing her latest book, A Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving, with the world. The book grew out of a conversation with a fellow passenger named Cheryl about four years ago, when Wendy was on a flight from Texas to San Diego. She fell asleep before the plane even took off. When she woke, Cheryl was sitting beside her. In the last fifteen minutes of the flight, Cheryl told Wendy about something called an “ask fast.” For forty days, years earlier, Cheryl, who was on the prayer team at her church, along with her pastor and other members, set aside their own petitions to focus entirely on praise, leading up to a revival.

 “She said it felt like a glass ceiling shattered,” Wendy said. “Our prayers just soared higher. More salvations, more testimonies came out of that specific event than any other.” Before they parted, Wendy asked Cheryl where to begin memorizing Scripture. Cheryl told her to memorize Psalm 100. Even though she was broken and wrote the verse through tears, Wendy remained obedient. It’s taken her the past four years to undergo that same glass-shattering experience she now invites her readers to.

A Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving: 30 Days of Rejoicing in God’s Goodness is a 30-day devotional that guides readers through an Ask Fast and explores themes of personal strength, renewal, and worship. For readers wondering how to praise God in seasons that don't feel worth celebrating, Wendy points to a truth she constantly leans on, borrowed from author Eugene Peterson: “Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.” In other words, we don't wait to feel like praising before we do it. We praise, and the feeling often follows.

To coincide with the book’s release, Wendy will host the first annual “30 Days of Praise and Thanksgiving Ask Fast” throughout November and will lead a live online group every November thereafter. “He didn't call us to thank Him for a day,” said Wendy, “but to continually offer up our sacrifices of thanksgiving.”

Looking to the future and her enduring impact, Wendy offers this advice:

“I know that my pen is my weapon,” she said. “So, I’m just going to keep showing up, being who God made me to be, and I invite you to do the same.”

Learn more about A Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving, and join her 30-Day Ask Fast community, which launches every November, at www.wendyspeake.com/praise.