Why I journal.

Earlier this week, I was hanging with two of the girls from my Cross Point small group, talking about school and dudes and Lent and gal stuff. You know, just some chicks cluckin’ about life.

I kinda half-mentioned that the girls should bring their journals to small group that night.

And to my utter shock, neither of them had a journal.

It took me a minute to remember that

  1. they are freshman in college
  2. I started journaling as a freshman in college
  3. They are not my age
  4. I am a full 13 years older than these people
And then I got all giggly because one of the JOYS of leading a small group is introducing the girls to spiritual disciplines or life lessons or skillz that they may not already know.
[Example: how to cook with a crockpot. You are welcome, lay-deez.]

So that night, when they came over for small group, I pulled out this box. My box of journals.

This is every journal I have written in, scribbled on, and cried over for the last 14 years. I read a few carefully selected excerpts to the girls and I told them what to do with my journals whenever I die. [Burn them all. No reading them. Seriously.]

They loved it. Honestly, so did I. I loved sharing my history with them. It was sweet.

I challenged them to start now. Start writing what they were learning, experiencing, praying.

I know not everyone loves writing, I get that. But I think journaling in some form or fashion is super important- whether that is a pen to paper, writing a song, making lists on your computer, writing a blog post, whatever.

You need to journal because you need to be recording God’s faithfulness in your life. 

You need to have a place where important verses are collected. You need to have a spot where you hurt, then wrestle with God, and survive it. You need to write the prayers that seem to never get answered. You need to write the ones that do.

I don’t journal every day. But I don’t feel guilty about that either. When I sit down with my journal, it’s cathartic for me. It slows down my mind to write, instead of type, my thoughts. My prayers are more intentional when I’m scripting out every word.

One of the sweetest entries for me, to date, is when I wrote out my prayers in the Amsterdam airport on my first trip to Scotland in 2011. I just had no idea. I didn’t know how Scotland would beautifully scar me for life. So all those fears and innocent questions that I posed that day are recorded forever and so sweet to read on the other side.

When it is so easy for me to forget how many times God has saved the day, or feel like He has forgotten me, I have my journals to remind me that He has ALWAYS been FOR me.

. . . . .

Do you journal?

Why do you find this to be a good discipline in your Christian walk?

We want to make some journals before they go home for the summer. Do you have any cool crafty journal ideas to share that are pretty cheap?

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