From an early age Groves loved to write songs, playing the piano to express her thoughts and feelings. “If Mom wanted me to walk the dog and I didn’t want to, she could pretty much count on hearing a song the next week about me not wanting to walk the dog.”

The oldest of three daughters, Groves spent her childhood adventuring on the family’s farmstead. “I loved it when the show Survivor came on a couple of years ago because I invented it,” she says, wryly. “Except we called it ‘Lost Orphan’ and my sisters and I would search for wild onions, berry bushes and quench our thirst on honeysuckle growing on the back fence.”

During her school years, Groves and her siblings hauled sleeping bags outside to stargaze. For Groves the act brought a sense of order as she pondered life and continued to write songs. “I’ve never been able to doubt God in the face of creation. It doesn’t speak of self-sufficiency, it speaks of purpose,” she says.

Her mother Nancy, a classically trained pianist who penned several cantatas, helped guide Sara’s singing career by arranging recording time for her daughter’s 18th birthday. “Mom wanted a recording of the songs I’d written and that people had requested.” While at Evangel University, Groves pursued the academic path of her parents, expanded her performing to coffeehouses and churches, and met her future husband, Troy.

The newlyweds moved to Minneapolis, where Troy was already employed. For four years Groves taught English and History at a High School in the Minneapolis suburb of Rosemount, where she believes she gained her training ground for performance. “God doesn’t waste anything. I left the classroom thinking I could be anything,” Groves says. “A lot of my songs were born from those experiences.”

Her father-in-law and Troy made a plan for Groves to record an album. Independently released Past Wishing debuted in 1998, selling 20,000 copies and gaining Nashville’s attention. Conversations soon followed, making its national debut in 2001 with INO Records and garnering Groves a Dove Award nomination.

While remaining true to her folk roots in her latest album All Right Here, Groves displays a kaleidoscope of sounds, including the edgy, Bonnie Raitt-feel of You Did That for Me, the ethereal loftiness of Fly, and the anthem, Jesus, You’re Beautiful. She is uninhibited in her lyrics about life, whether revealing the sustenance found in a good friend, the need for a lingering kiss from her husband, or her annoyance with high-maintenance relationships. “Church is where I am fed and watered but my faith grows in my marriage, my home, my motherhood and in relationships,” she says.

On much of the soundtrack, Groves proves she’s a fit contender in the ring of contemporary Christian artists, causing the listener to feast on her word choices. She is a Hemingway lyricist, a master at juxtapositioning words in short lines of rhyme and musical timing. “Less like dying, more like transcending, less like haunting, more like remember.” Groves says about the song, Less Like Scars, "I love communicating complicated things and have the light go on for people. This song was initially inspired by our new post-9/11 life. I wanted to give God credit for how He transforms and redeems the dark times in our lives.”

Though a song may come to her while driving in her car, Groves writes at the piano. “Sometimes they come all in one piece. Maybe There’s a Loving God had a lot of drafts.” For Painting Pictures of Egypt on her Conversations album, a word, pinching, came to her while seated at the piano. Groves considers those moments divine inspiration. “As a believer I believe the Holy Spirit has given me that word and I have to figure out the song that goes with it.”

On each album Groves includes a song that is a compilation of people she’s met over the years who’ve had faith questions, and tries to answer it. In Maybe There’s a Loving God Groves takes on the personification of a young woman’s view of a distant God in the sky. The lyrics capture the person’s struggles, born of a culture that views evolution as fact, not theory. Groves breaks down the woman’s roadblocks to faith.

In Remember Surrender, one feels seated at the window seat of God as Groves draws the listener to recall more intimate times with the Savior and the powerful changes that occurred while there. “Some of these songs were written where I think I should be,” Groves explains. “I believe in a God of miracles, but I also believe in a God who has us in process. There’s a process working in our lives and we won’t be finished until we die.”

Though Groves is clear about her call to be a lifelong musician, she admits that the weeks of non-stop touring can take their toll on her. For strength she turns to another songwriter, King David. “David talks about where he is,” says Groves. “He says what he thinks. ‘Man, I wish I didn’t wake up knowing about good and evil all the time. I know too much. Wouldn’t it just be nice to go to work?’ But then David remembers he’s nothing without being where God wants him to be.”

Admits Groves, “I’ve had that exact conversation with God. This call [to be a songwriter] sometimes is heavy on my heart but I always come back like David. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing except what God wants me to do.”

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