A Favorite Thing

June 10th, 2008

Journaling is one of my favorite things.

I have journaled off and on since I was 18 years old. (It is interesting and kind of “trippy” to go back and read yourself as an 18 year old.) This blog is a simple form of my journaling. It doesn’t go as deep and raw as my hand written journal, but it does help to guide me along in my process. That is why I don’t have a certain theme I cover on certain days of the week. I need to keep this about right where I am at in the process. The trick is to stay present, caring only about what God has set out for me this day, with the confidence that He will take care of every tomorrow. We do have goals and plans of where we want to be in 5 years, 10 years etc. but I never want to live there today, I just want to take a tiny step today and trust God for all the rest.

I have always been an advocate for journaling when people tell me they can’t slow down, or their mind races a million miles a minute, or they need direction on something. Culture doesn’t allow for us to be still and silent. Even when we do carve out time for this, our mind has been conditioned to fly a million miles a minute. It takes discipline and consistent training to cause our minds to stop thinking about ourself and start thinking about someone much bigger than ourselves. That is why I so dearly love theologians like Foster and Willard who promote the disciplines of silence and solitude. I have so far to come in this regard. But I keep taking tiny steps forward.

Somehow the act of writing out your thoughts helps you to organize, process, throw out the unneeded thinking, hold onto the precious pieces, make since of the hard ones. It gives you a big picture view, a clean sweep every day that allows you to get rid of you and take in more of Him. Well you can’t hear what God is whispering to you when you are full of you. It also allows me to see the finger prints of God in my life, shaping, guiding, forming, correcting.

So tonight, I made myself some tea, lit the candles, and wrote out all my cares, my thoughts, my failures, my dreams out on paper, again. Almost like an act of getting rid of me and sitting silently with the one who knows me better than I know myself. Sitting with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a favorite thing.

Sometimes I draw, sometimes later I come back to find that they have drawn. I used to get angry and say this is Mommy’s journal. If you want to draw I will get you a piece of paper. Now, I just enjoy the little tiny fingerprints left here for me to remember years from now. Now, Chloe will ask me to sit and sketch with her, in her own journal. It is her favorite Mommy/Daughter time, that and doing dishes - go figure.

In the past I have seen a little bit of me, that needs a little fixing, a deeper healing. A piece that keeps running ahead of God, thinking the grass is greener, the sky is bluer, and that there is somewhere else I should be. Now, when I journal, I see a deeper understanding that the grass isn’t greener and that I am right where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing, and that He will provide for every day in this life and in the life to come. Funny thing is, I would of never seen it, if I hadn’t looked back at my journal and witnessed all that God is doing in me and all that He is leading me into. If I would of continued to look to being somewhere else I would of missed all that He is doing right here.

Peace to all that are working on being present to what the Father is doing in their lives, even if it is kind of painful, and you don’t get it all, but you refuse to run away and hide like it isn’t there etc. etc. etc.~

Entry Filed under: Life, Uncategorized