Journals of My Past

I am having an afternoon of going down memory lane. Do you journal? Do you take moments through out each day,week or month and just write? I have been writing since I was 14 years old. I remember once I wrote about my best friend at the time. Her name was Karen and we were having some kind of fight. Well she found my journal and wrote in it. She told me it was not fair that I tell God only one side of the story. Later we laughed because we both realized how silly the fight was and that God in fact did know both sides of the story.

I would never have remembered that little moment if I did not journal ed it. I am cleaning out boxes and tossing this and that. I cam across a journal from 8-10 years ago. OUCH!!! That was a harder time in my life and reading the scriptures that God gave, that sustained me are powerful to read even today. Reading my process in what was a very crazy time in my life. Appreciating how honest I was in my writing allows me to look back at these years and see how God moved mountains in my life, and even today He is the Glory to my Story. ( just read that part to Emily and she said "cheezy")

There is a consistent in over 30 years of journaling. That consistent is something I have joked about. I write out scripture. I read an article from Harvard Business journal when I was 16 years old. It stated that those who take good notes, write out exactly what the teacher is saying, later going back to assemble those notes do better on retaining the information, thus do better on test scores. The Bible has always been my teacher of Truth and thus I write scripture. I also thought when I was younger that if ever the freedom to own a Bible is taken away it would not matter in that I have decades of journals with scripture written out.

I love reading all the developmental stages of my kids, and the lists of prayer requests for them, and how those prayers have changed over the years and the answers over and over again. God is faithful. We have our memories to reach into as a reminder, but oh JOY what a blessing to read the history of how God has shown up in my life through journaling.

If you do not journal, start today. It will amaze you to realize how fast the years do go by, and the things you forgot until you open an old book, your own writing and begin to read. I have saved notes stuck to the pages. Today this one made me smile..

"here is your coffee mommy, enjoy sleeping in, love Elliot." He was 13 years old, made me the worst coffee ever, and left it on my nightstand with a note. The note is stuck in my journal.

These pages are my story, and my story is about how God shows up at every turn, every joy penned, every sorrow hemmed into the seams of my writings. Thanks God, for the gift of time to record my walk with YOU.