First, let me say how much I enjoy all your comments on the blog. I read every one and learn from them. They also inspire and encourage me to keep sharing the insights God and life are teaching me. I love it when you comment, share the blog with others, and click “Like”!
A few blogs ago (Friend in a Café) someone posted this comment: “I often thought about writing in a journal, then realized I don’t have a lifestyle that merits a journal.”
I’ve been pondering that comment ever since and decided to address you who might feel that your life isn’t journal-worthy. I would also like to hear from you who don’t feel that way.
First, never buy a “diary”. Journaling should never be a tyrant that forces you to keep account of every day or makes you feel guilty if you don’t. Just find an empty, well-bound journal, one that pleases you to hold and of a size that you can take with you.
Second, if a moment means something to you, write it down. Don’t wait for an important or consequential event. Just a regular moment will do. Did you love smelling the bacon frying and the aroma of morning coffee? Write how it made you feel or a memory it evoked. Did the sunrise on the new-fallen snow or the golden wheat field behind your house make you clap your hands inside? Describe it. Notice the fairies dancing in the dew drops outside the kitchen window? Say so! Catch the moment! Did your child say something surprisingly insightful? Write it down. You think you’ll remember, but you won’t unless you write it down.
Don’t be pressured to write a lot. Put a date at the top of the page and then scribble a few sentences. Think of it as if you are texting yourself. Sharpen your focus; pay attention. Then, tell the pages what you are seeing and feeling. No flowery language is needed. Journaling is like a prayer. You don’t have to impress God...or the paper.
Third, if you spend the day sad or depressed or discouraged, tell your journal before you go to bed. Puke it all out on the pages. Are you frustrated or angry? Vent to your journal. Then let it go and go to bed. Don’t re-read it the next day or maybe the next week or next month. I have a feeling that when you do re-read your entry later on, you will have gained some perspective.
Fourth, take your journal with you to lunch in a small café. Keep it in the car while you’re waiting for the kids to come out of school or while waiting for road construction. Sip a latté in an airport coffee shop and read the stories around you in the faces, the body language, the interactions (or lack thereof). Write what you see and listen with your heart to the messages. When you get up in the morning, write down your dreams. Don’t try to interpret their meaning; that may come later. The main thing is to learn to pay attention to life around you and inside you, and record it for this moment.
When you have your devotional/meditation time, keep your journal close. If you are reading the Bible verse for the day, read the whole chapter. Pay attention to the story, the context of that verse. I guarantee you will have a new revelation or fresh insight that will speak to your day. You’ll want to write it down.
Over my years of mostly sporadic journaling, I have discovered a few things.
1. What I thought was important at the time, turned out not to be, and the things so common I almost didn’t write them down, turned out to be very important. Someone has said “big doors swing on very small hinges”. Yes, journaling has let me know what is important—and what is not.
2. Journaling has taught me there is a difference between
--acquaintances and relationships
--calling and career
--setbacks and failure
--success and accomplishment
--power and authority.
3. God is always up to something in my life.
4. I have learned
--everyone needs to belong
--I need silence and solitude
--meditation and centering are needs as innate and ancient as Adam and Eve
--silence needs to be coupled with reflection if it is to be restorative.
5. Eternity starts here. There is eternity to be found in each moment. My job is to recognize it and give myself away for things that last forever, for forever starts here.
I hope you will start journaling if you haven’t. And I hope whether you are a life-long journaler or a brave new starter, you will share your experiences with us.
This song is the journal entry of my life.
