Red Leather Journal

As I was grabbing the footstool that had been put away for the holiday due to very little room with Christmas decorations, the lid came off and there staring me in the face was my red leather bound journal. Putting the living room back together with the final touches was going to have to wait. I wanted to see why this journal was calling my name. 

The first date was from 2003 when we started our ministry. Reading the words that were now almost 2 decades old, I found myself reliving day’s sitting on hard benches in juvenile court. Crying with moms when the courts said their children needed to go into foster care. Making schedules work so moms could work a fulltime job and had no daycare. There were also entries with fun memories of a zoo day and birthday parties. 

The entries were sporadic but October 17, 2004 the entry said: My sister asked me if I was keeping a journal. By December of the same year I wrote, can you tell journaling is not one of my strong suits. The last journal entry  was December 20, 2004, even though there were still over a couple hundred pages to fill. It stated that I was ready to quit, with a young mom suicidal and two others fighting over the same guy. 

Even though I didn’t pick that particular journal back up until April 29, 2018 to start writing in it again when we were preparing to plant a church, I had actually found a love of journaling during my quiet time.  Don’t believe me? Ask my husband about the big box of journals he has now moved in and out of storage and moving trucks multiple times over the past 4 years.

As I was going down memory lane and reading the words where I had poured my heart out to God, I realized how many times I would ask God for something, and just a few pages later He had given me an answer, I just wasn’t watching for it.

Reading today I saw red flags, brick walls, even amazing answers, but because I was living it,  I missed them. It never occurred to me that in my journaling time that I should go back and read the days and weeks prior.  

If there is one thing I learned today about journaling is that  you really need to go back often to the pages before and see if God has given you answers, red flags or even brick-walls. They were there today as I read it though like a book, but while I was living in the day, unless it was obvious, I didn’t equate it to a thought I had written or a conversation I had had or an answer from God. 

I know that there are so many different formulas for journaling and I think I have tried many of them over the years. Today if you were to pick up my journal, you would see that God and I were having a conversation. I write out my prayers to Him. I write out my thoughts to Him. For me journaling has become my prayer-life line and after today, I have learned that it is also a place to find answers to even the smallest prayers and requests. 

My challenge to you is that while you are attempting to find the style of journaling that fits for you, do something. Don’t use it as an excuse to do nothing. Also don’t use the excuse that you don’t have a cute journal, most of my journals are actually composition books I buy when school supplies go on sale and I can buy them for less than a dollar.