Journaling

For 20 years I've read and been told that every Christian should keep a prayer journal. I ignored that advice for the first 12-15 years and then I actually tried to keep one off and on. But I was never successful at it. I just couldn't stick with it for some reason. Then I bought a book to be my journal and had it laying around the house for 6 months without picking it up for any reason other than to dust it. Then seven months ago I decided it was time to give it another try. It was hard at first and sometimes I would go a couple days between entries, but I did my best to stick with it. And it wasn't long until I was journaling every day and actually looking forward to it. It got to where if I'd forget about it and go to bed without journaling, I would get back up and sit on the couch and journal for as long as I needed to. The past few months I haven't missed a day and my day wouldn't feel complete without writing in my journal. I have to say these past seven months have been such a blessing to me once I got over the struggle to establish the habit of spending time in it every day. If you don't journal, may I encourage you to give it a try. It's just amazing what a blessing it has become for me.

What do I write in it? Everything. Nothing is off limits. Whatever is on my mind and heart will end up in my journal before I go to sleep. And after awhile it became such a comfort to just take it all to the Lord in my journal. I prayed once and asked what God would want me to pray about and His answer was "Just tell me about your day." Clear. Short. Simple. And that's how I started out. Just writing about my day and writing down what was on my heart. Things I looked forward to and things I regretted. I wrote out my thank yous and requests. And before I knew it I began to see a pattern. God was at work in my journal. I sit down with pencil in hand and He tells me what to write. Before I knew it I was not only recording my requests and questions I was also recording their answers. Like tonight. I was writing about an incident that happen last week and I was just writing about it, that my feelings were really, really hurt and I asked the Lord what possible good could come out of this situation and before I finished recording my question I had God's answer. This has happened several times now and it seems to be happening more frequently. It is really the next best thing to sitting beside my Lord and asking Him questions personally. It is just so rewarding to have those answers often before I've even finished asking the question. So I'm able to record the answers right after asking the question. Now if I'm praying for something to happen or I'm praying for someone's health I can't expect an immediate answer to those kinds of requests. But I'm able to ask the questions ... and get the answers! This didn't happen right away, as soon as I began journaling, but it's happened now several times and just once makes it worthwhile!

So if you haven't taken up journaling I'd sure like to encourage you to try. I don't go in for fancy stuff; I just used a little spiral binder with a built-in elastic band to keep it closed that I bought at WalMart for $3+. So any blank book will work, you needn't spend a lot of money on one. Once you have your journal you'll probably sit there with pencil in hand and a blank mind, wondering what in the world you were supposed to write. I did. I couldn't think of anything to write and so I wrote that I couldn't think of anything to write. And then I wrote how that made me feel. And then before I knew it I had a paragraph written. I usually journal in the evenings before going to bed but you can journal any time you want. You pick the time and the place. The thing to do is to get yourself into the habit of doing it regularly. Then before you know it you're writing every day without fail. And rather than writing paragraphs you'll find you're writing pages.

I can't imagine not journaling now. I get so much out of it. It's therapeutic to just sit down in the evenings and go over the things you've done that day and write down your feelings and emotions and questions you might have. And I promise you, if you keep it up, you'll get a lot more out of it than you put into it. And you'll be wonderfully surprised when God answers your questions before you can even finish writing them. And you'll find that your days just won't be complete without having entered something into your journal. Spelling and syntax won't mean a thing because no one's going to be reading your journal. I'm going to try and go back sometime and read what I've written and look for answers to highlight to make the answered prayers stand out so I can see at a glance God's faithfulness. And from this point on I'm going to highlight them as I record them. I don't know why I didn't think to highlight them or make them stand out in some way as I wrote them because right now all those blessings are buried in a lot of writing. But going back through will give me the opportunity to review everything. And years from now I can go back and see all those answered prayers.

I was reading someone last fall (I believe it was Charles Stanley) that talked about his journaling (in fact that's what made me decide to give it another try) and he talked of having something like 40 or 50 YEARS worth of journals! Can you imagine? As much as I find that I'm really, truly loving the art of journaling I wish to high heaven I had started years and years ago. I'd love to be able to go back to when I was a baby in Christ and see all those answered prayers. That was when Jesus was introducing Himself to me and He and I talked everyday. Every day, all day! And I know I would be utterly amazed at all those questions I used to ask Him and all those answers He gave to my questions. I can see how, during those dry seasons when you just feel like God doesn't seem to be listening, you can go back and be reminded of just how faithful God has been in the past. If you don't journal, please give it a try. Challenge yourself to try it for a month and see if you don't feel like doing it another month and then another and another. Actually, I think it took about 3 months for me to really get into it. Now it's almost like an addiction for me if one can be addicted to prayer. (And wouldn't that be nice?)

Today was somewhat cooler than the past couple days have been. Believe it or not there's a big difference between the 105+ we had today and the 109+ of the two previous days. It made all the difference in the world. And tomorrow is supposed to be cooler and then Wednesday is supposed to be the coolest day of the week. The heat just wears me out. I have so little energy I don't seem to get anything done. Although I did get my bed made, carpets vacuumed, and bathroom scoured and polished today. It's been quite awhile since I've done several things in a single day. But I woke up this morning just before 6:00 but I thought it was just before 7:00 and I knew my alarm was set for 7:30 and I decided that I didn't want to just lie there and wait for the alarm to go off so I went ahead and got up. Michael and I both needed lab work done and we had to be fasting to do it. That's why I had the alarm set so early. The lab opens at 7:00 and we can get over and get our blood drawn and be back home again before we'd usually be stirring. I'm beginning very much to appreciate getting up early on days when I have plans or have things that need to be done. Especially now with the hot weather. It was just beautiful this morning when we got over to the lab just after 7:00 and the flowers were in bloom and were so beautiful. There were pansies and hollyhocks and snap dragons and some that I didn't know what kind they were. It was such a pretty flower bed right there as you enter the building. Took us no time at all to get the work done (we were the first customers of the day) and get home to a cup of coffee. Funny; I don't fast and pray but I'll fast for a blood test. [Fasting: A whole other ball game for another time. It's enough now to simply state that I've been thinking about fasting a lot lately.]

We will be getting up about 7:30 in the morning to get up and get around again and head out to do some shopping. We got our stimulus payment from the IRS and we thought we would do our civic duty and go spend it. Tomorrow. I was prepared to set my alarm for 5:30 so we could get over the river and to WalMart by opening time. But the problem with that is that we have several other places to shop besides WalMart and if we get there too early, we finish up there too early. All our other stops are still closed, 'cause it's too early. Most of them don't open until 9:00 or 10:00. So that kind of put a bit of a damper on our early, early rising. We plan on having a blast with our stimulus money. I can't even remember the last time we had money to just spend on ourselves. We're both going to get some clothes and I'm going to get a new pair of athletic shoes for everyday wear. Although I won't be wearing them every day now that the heat has come upon us. When it's hot I go barefoot as much as possible and then usually thongs if I'm going to be going outside. My feet get sooooooo hot!

One of the items I have on my list are more journals. I like the ones I'm using now and I'd kind of like to keep them the same style for as long as possible. When we did our shopping at the beginning of the month I bought the last book WalMart had left so I have to hope they've gotten more in. But that's like hoping for the Hope diamond in the next chicken egg you crack open. Most of the time with WalMart shopping, if you find something you really like and it's consumable you better buy as much or as many as you can afford because you'll never see it in WalMart again. I know Staples had some just like what I'm using now, for twice as much money of course so I guess in a real pinch I could pick up some there (if they're open that early). But I'd much rather buy them at WalMart. Or the Dollar Tree. They may not have the kind of books I'm using now but they might have something that I could use instead and buy a bunch of those at $1 a piece. I'd like that the most, ha!

Oh, oh, I have to tell you about my study today. Today brought me into the New Testament (NT) and I got soooooooo much out of today's study. About as much as I got with the first six Minor Prophets. Before the author took me into Matthew he spent a good deal of time covering the history between the NT and the Old Testament (OT) and it was just a terrific history lesson. I've never fully understood all that happened between the OT and the NT but I learned so much today. And then the author introduced the Apostles to me and then, of course, Jesus's birth. What a wonderful study today. I was so disappointed when I discovered it was over. It's amazing how fast reading times fly when you're really, really engrossed in them. I will most definitely make it a point to come back to chapter 19 and reread it several times over the next year. I'll get all that information stored into my brain one way or another, ha! This author did a wonderful job of explaining the times, the fact that they had Roman rule, Greek culture, and a Jewish religion of that day and how because of all these things it made for perfect timing for Jesus. The world was ripe for His life and ministry in so many ways. Until next time...