Journaling to Remember

I filled up my journal today. Yep, every single page is full of my scribbles and thoughts. 

It is always bittersweet to come to the end of a journal. Bitter because it feels like you are losing an old, trusty friend. But sweet because you can flip through the pages and see where you’ve been, how you made it through, and what you’ve learned. 

Mostly I see God’s faithfulness to me as I look back at different pages.

Like how I read Luke 1-2 on the day that I found out I was pregnant with our Little One who we lost. It was a great reminder that God works through new life, pregnancy, and child-bearing. That’s how He provided His Son for our sins!

Or how I wrote out one section of Psalm 27 numerous times because I was having such a problem remembering these words, “One thing I have asked, that I may seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple.” But now I can type them from memory.

Or how I mastered a new method of note-taking for church, one that actually helps me remember what the preacher is saying! 

Or how many times there are only the beginnings of sermon notes because I had to leave to go get my fussy baby from nursery.

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The journal is my Ebenezer.

It’s my rock of remembrance. You may know that term from the popular hymn, “Come Thou Fount.” The line goes, 

“Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I’ve come.”

In the Bible, the prophet Samuel set up a stone when God had delivered the Israelites from their enemy, the Philistines. He called it Ebenezer (stone of help), to remind the Israelites that the Lord had helped them. (See 1 Samuel 7:12)

That is exactly like my journal. I look at it’s contents and see how God has helped me. How He has encouraged me when I’m sad or lonely (Philippians 4:4), how He settles my heart when I’m restless (Psalm 46:10), and how He is near to me when I am broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18). 

He has never given up on me or left me alone. Even though many of my prayers in that journal are pleas for forgiveness because I’ve failed Him.

It’s only by His help that I’ve come this far. That I’ve made it through another journal and all the events of life therein. 

This is why I love keeping a journal. It’s nothing fancy, but it helps me remember God’s never-ending, all powerful, trustworthy, faithfulness.

So, yes, filling up a journal is bittersweet. But how sweet to look and see that the Lord is good, that He is my Great Shepherd, caring for my every need, so that I won’t want (Psalm 23:1).

And now I’ve got a new one so I get to start the process all over again.

Do you keep a journal?

Here are some of my favorite notebooks for journaling:

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