Journaling

When I was in 7th grade, I started journaling. Diaries never worked for me for long, but a prayer journal was something I learned to do that was more meaningful. I used a prayer journal for a long time. It helped me focus during my time with God. I enjoyed writing, so it was an easy way for me to communicate.

And then, at a women's retreat years later, I had an encounter with God that sent me running. Crazy, I know. Retreats are supposed to draw us closer to God. But I stopped journaling pretty abruptly. I was scared to death of God and what he was going to do in my life. My faith wasn't gone, but I was definitely avoiding Him. My relationship with God eventually recovered, but the journaling didn't continue.

In a wonderful, needed, de-cluttering stage, I started to read my prayer journals which I had kept in a box. And you know what, they were EMBARASSING! Wasn't I supposed to feel so blessed by how God had moved in my circumstances when I read these again? Instead I was dismayed by how I sounded. I was ashamed of how I was still dealing with the same issues. And I could tell what I wouldn't even put down in the journal because I was afraid someone else might read it. I was horrified at my own banality. I threw away all but my very first prayer journal. How freeing to let go of it...maybe...

Well, over and over in the last few months, the prayer journal has been mentioned in things I've read and by people I respect. Yes, Lord, I'm listening. A prayer journal is something that really does help me process. I don't have to read it again to have received the blessing out of processing on paper with You.